Waiting For Balancing

Waiting for Balancing
Waiting for Balancing Keir A. Lieber and

Gerard Alexander
Why the World Is Not Pushing Back
M
any scholars and
policy analysts predicted the emergence of balancing against the United States
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Since
then, however, great power balancing—when states seriously commit them-
selves to containing a threatening state—has failed to emerge, despite a huge
increase in the preponderant power of the United States. More recently, the
prospect and then onset of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 gener-
ated renewed warnings of an incipient global backlash. Some observers claim
that signs of traditional balancing by states—that is, internal defense buildups
or external alliance formation—can already be detected. Others suggest that
such “hard balancing” may not be occurring. Instead, they argue that the
world is witnessing a new phenomenon of “soft balancing,” in which states
seek to undermine and restrain U.S. power in ways that fall short of classic
measures. But in both versions, many believe that the wait is over and that the
world is beginning to push back.
This article argues, in contrast, that both lines of argument are unpersuasive.
The past few years have certainly witnessed a surge in resentment and criti-
cism of speciªc U.S. policies. But great power balancing against the United
States has yet to occur, a ªnding that we maintain offers important insights
into states’ perceptions and intentions. The United States’ nearest rivals are not
ramping up defense spending to counter U.S. power, nor have these states
sought to pool their efforts or resources for counterbalancing. We argue, fur-
ther, that discussion of soft balancing is much ado about nothing. Deªning or
operationalizing the concept is difªcult; the behavior typically identiªed by it
seems identical to normal diplomatic friction; and, regardless, the evidence
does not support speciªc predictions suggested by those advancing the
concept.
Global interactions during and after the Iraq war have been ªlled with both
a great deal of stasis—as many states leave their policies toward the United
States fundamentally unchanged—and ironies, such as repeated requests by
Keir A. Lieber is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. He is also Faculty
Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Nanovic Institute for European
Studies at Notre Dame. Gerard Alexander is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia.
The authors thank Keven Ruby, Randall Schweller, and the participants of the Program on Interna-
tional Politics, Economics, and Security at the University of Chicago for comments on an earlier
draft of this article. They also thank Ozlem Kayhan for her research assistance.
International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 109–139

© 2005 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
109
International Security 30:1 110
the United States for its allies to substantially boost their military spending
and capabilities, requests that so far have gone unªlled. Moreover, U.S. rela-
tions with regional powers such as China, Russia, India, and other key states
(e.g., Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia) have improved in recent
years. These revealing events and trends are underappreciated by many, per-
haps most, analyses in search of balancing.
The lack of balancing behavior against the United States constitutes a genu-
ine puzzle for many observers, with serious implications both for theorizing
and for U.S. foreign policy making, and so is a puzzle worth explaining. The
next section of this article reviews approaches that predict balancing under
current conditions. The second section presents evidence that classic forms of
balancing are not occurring. The third section argues that claims of soft balanc-
ing are unpersuasive because evidence for them is poor, especially because
they rely on criteria that cannot effectively distinguish between soft balancing
and routine diplomatic friction. These claims are, in that sense, nonfalsiªable.
The fourth section proposes that balancing against the United States is not oc-
curring because the post–September 11 grand strategy designed by the George
W. Bush administration, despite widespread criticism, poses a threat only to a
very limited number of regimes and terrorist groups. As a result, most coun-
tries either do not have a direct stake in the “war on terror” or, often, share the
U.S. interest in the reduction of threats from rogue states and terrorist groups.
This line of argument refocuses analytic attention away from U.S. relations
with the entire world as a disaggregated whole and toward a sharp distinction
between, on the one hand, U.S. policy toward rogue states and transnational
terrorist organizations and, on the other, U.S. relations with other states.
Predictions of Balancing: International Relations Theory and

U.S. Foreign Policy
The study of balancing behavior in international relations has deep roots, but it
remains fraught with conceptual ambiguities and competing theoretical and
empirical claims.1 Rather than offer a review of the relevant debates, we focus
here on a speciªc set of realist and liberal predictions that states will balance
1. Recent surveys of balance of power theory that also include discussions of contemporary inter-
national politics include G. John Ikenberry, ed., America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002); John A. Vasquez and Colin Elman, eds., Realism and
the Balancing of Power: A New Debate (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2002); and T.V. Paul,
James J. Wirtz, and Michel Fortmann, eds., Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century
(Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2004).
Waiting for Balancing 111
against U.S. power under current conditions. Although realists tend to see
great power balancing as an inevitable phenomenon of international politics
and liberals generally see it as an avoidable feature of international life, the ar-
guments discussed below share the view that balancing is being provoked by
aggressive and imprudent U.S. policies.
Traditional structural realism holds that states motivated by the search for
security in an anarchical world will balance against concentrations of power:
“States, if they are free to choose, ºock to the weaker side; for it is the stronger
side that threatens them.”2 According to Kenneth Waltz and other structural
realists, the most powerful state will always appear threatening because
weaker states can never be certain that it will not use its power to violate their
sovereignty or threaten their survival. With the demise of the Soviet Union in
1991, the United States was left with a preeminence of power unparalleled in
modern history. The criteria for expecting balancing in structural realist terms
do not require that U.S. power meet a speciªc threshold; all that matters is that
the United States is the preeminent power in the system, which it was in 1990
and clearly remains today. Consistent with earlier theorizing, prominent real-
ists predicted at the end of the Cold War that other major powers would bal-
ance against it.3 A decade later, Waltz identiªed “balancing tendencies already
taking place” and argued that it was only a matter of time before other great
powers formed a serious balancing coalition, although that timing is theoreti-
cally underdetermined: “Theory enables one to say that a new balance of
power will form but not to say how long it will take. . . . In our perspective, the
new balance is emerging slowly; in historical perspectives, it will come in the
blink of an eye.”4
John Mearsheimer’s work is an important exception to the structural realist
prediction of balancing against the United States. He argues that geography—
speciªcally, the two oceans that separate the United States from the world’s
other great powers—prevents the United States from projecting enough mili-
tary power to pursue global hegemony. Given this lack of capability, the
2. Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979), p. 127.
3. Kenneth N. Waltz, “The Emerging Structure of International Politics,” International Security, Vol.
18, No. 2 (Fall 1993), pp. 44–79; and Christopher Layne, “The Unipolar Illusion: Why New Great
Powers Will Rise,” International Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 5–51. John J.
Mearsheimer’s widely cited article about a return to multipolarity (and the dangers that would
follow) was predicated on the assumption that the United States would join the Soviet Union in
withdrawing its forces from Europe. See Mearsheimer, “Back to the Future: Instability in Europe
after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Summer 1990), pp. 5–56.
4. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” International Security, Vol. 25, No. 1
(Summer 2000), pp. 27, 30.
United States must be content with regional hegemony. This means that the
United States is essentially a status quo power that poses little danger to the
survival or sovereignty of other great powers. Thus, according to Mear-
sheimer, no balancing coalition against the United States is likely to form. (For
similar reasons, history’s previous “offshore balancer”—Great Britain—did
not provoke a balancing coalition even at the height of its power in the nine-
teenth century.)5
A distinctive strand of realist theory holds that states balance against per-
ceived threats, not just against raw power. Stephen Walt argues that perceived
threat depends on a combination of aggregate power, geography, technology,
intentions, and foreign policy behavior.6 With this theoretical modiªcation,
Walt and others seek to explain why the United States provoked less balancing
in the last half century than its sheer power would suggest.7 Although geogra-
phy is important, as in Mearsheimer’s explanation above, balance of threat
theorists ªnd the key to the absence of real balancing in the United States’ dis-
tinct history of comparatively benign intentions and behavior, especially the
absence of attempts to conquer or dominate foreign lands. As Robert Pape ar-
gues, “The long ascendancy of the United States has been a remarkable excep-
tion” to the balance of power prediction, and the main reason for this is its
“high reputation for non-aggressive intentions.”8 Given the United States’
long-standing power advantages, this has been partly the result of self-re-
straint, which Walt believes can continue to “keep the rest of the world ‘off-
balance’ and minimize the opposition that the United States will face in the
future.”9
Now, however, many balance of threat realists predict balancing based on
what amounts to an empirical claim: that U.S. behavior since the September 11,
2001, terrorist attacks is sufªciently threatening to others that it is accelerating
the process of balancing. For these balance of threat theorists, U.S. policies are
5. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: W.W. Norton, 2001). See also
Jack S. Levy, “What Do Great Powers Balance Against and When?” in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann,
Balance of Power, pp. 29–51.
6. Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987).
7. The United States was overwhelmingly the world’s most dominant country immediately after
World War 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.
8. Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” paper pre-
pared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, Sep-
tember 2–5, 2004, pp. 11, 13.
9. Stephen M. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance’: Self-Restraint and U.S. Foreign Policy,” in
Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, p. 153.
undermining the reputation of the United States for benevolence. Walt com-
pares 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.”10 Pape argues that Presi-
dent George W. “Bush[‘s] strategy of aggressive unilateralism is changing
America’s long-enjoyed reputation for benign intent and giving other major
powers reason to fear America’s power.” In particular, adopting and imple-
menting a preventive war strategy is “encouraging other countries to form
counterweights to U.S. power.”11 Pape essentially suggests that the Bush ad-
ministration’s adoption of the preventive war doctrine in the aftermath of the
September 11 attacks converted the United States from a status quo power into
a revisionist one. He also suggests that by invading Iraq, the United States has
become an “‘on-shore’ hegemon in a major region of the world, abandoning
the strategy of off-shore balancing,” and that it is perceived accordingly by
others.12
Traditional structural realists agree that U.S. actions are hastening the bal-
ancing process. They argue that the United States is succumbing to the
“hegemon’s temptation” to take on extremely ambitious goals, use military
force unselectively and excessively, overextend its power abroad, and gener-
ally reject self-restraint in its foreign policy—all of which invariably generate
counterbalancing. Christopher Layne’s stark portrayal is worth citing at
length: “Many throughout the world now have the impression that the United
States is acting as an aggressive hegemon engaged in the naked aggrandize-
ment of its own power. The notion that the United States is a ‘benevolent’ he-
gemon has been shredded. America is inviting the same fate as that which has
overtaken previous contenders for hegemony.”13 The Bush administration’s
decision to go to war against Iraq is singled out as a catalytic event: “In coming
years, the Iraq War may come to be seen as a pivotal geopolitical event that
10. “Opposing War Is Not ‘Appeasement’: An Interview with Stephen Walt,” March 18, 2003,
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7431.
11. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” pp. 3, 14, 22; and
Robert A. Pape, “The World Pushes Back,” Boston Globe, March 23, 2003.
12. Robert A. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How the World Will Respond to U.S. Preventive War
on Iraq,” article posted on the Oak Park Coalition for Truth & Justice website, January 20, 2003,
http://www.opctj.org/articles/robert-a-pape-university-of-chicago-02-21-2003-004443.html; and
Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” p. 24.
13. Christopher Layne, “America as European Hegemon,” National Interest, No. 72 (Summer
2003), p. 28. See also Waltz, “Structural Realism after the Cold War,” p. 29.
heralded the beginning of serious counter-hegemonic balancing against the

United States.”14
Liberal theorists typically argue that democracy, economic interdependence,
and international institutions largely obviate the need for states to engage in
balancing behavior.15 Under current conditions, however, many liberals have
joined these realists in predicting balancing against the United States. These
liberal theorists share the view that U.S. policymakers have violated a grand
bargain of sorts—one that reduced incentives to balance against preponderant
U.S. power. In the most detailed account of this view, John Ikenberry argues
that hegemonic power does not automatically trigger balancing because it can
take a more benevolent form. Speciªcally, the United States has restrained its
own power through a web of binding alliances and multilateral commitments
infused with trust, mutual consent, and reciprocity. This U.S. willingness to
place restraints on its hegemonic power, combined with the open nature of its
liberal democracy, reassured weaker states that their interests could be pro-
tected and served within a U.S.-led international order, which in turn kept
their expected value of balancing against the United States low. This arrange-
ment allowed the United States to project its inºuence and pursue its interests
with only modest restraints on its freedom of action.16 Invoking a similar em-
pirical claim, Ikenberry argues that U.S. policies after September 11 shattered
this order: “In the past two years, a set of hard-line, fundamentalist ideas have
taken Washington by storm” and have produced a grand strategy equivalent
to “a geostrategic wrecking ball that will destroy America’s own half-century-
old international architecture.”17 This has greatly increased the incentives for
weaker states to balance.18
These claims and predictions rest on diverse theoretical models with differ-
ent underlying assumptions, and one should not conclude that all realist or
liberal theories now expect balancing. But there is unusual convergence
among these approaches on the belief that other countries have begun to en-
14. Christopher Layne, “The War on Terrorism and the Balance of Power: The Paradoxes of Amer-
ican Hegemony,” in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 103–126 at p. 119.
15. See, for example, John M. Owen IV, “Transnational Liberalism and American Primacy,” Inter-
national Security, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Winter 2001/2002), pp. 117–152; G. John Ikenberry, “Democracy,
Institutions, and American Restraint,” in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, pp. 213–238; and T.V. Paul,
“Introduction: The Enduring Axioms of Balance of Power Theory and Their Contemporary Rele-
vance,” in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 1–25 at pp. 9–11.
16. G. John Ikenberry, After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order after
Major War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001).
17. G. John Ikenberry, “The End of the Neo-Conservative Moment,” Survival, Vol. 46, No. 1
(Spring 2004), p. 7.
18. Ibid., p. 20; and G. John Ikenberry, “Introduction,” in Ikenberry, America Unrivaled, p. 10.
gage in balancing behavior against the United States, whether because of the
U.S. relative power advantage, the nature of its foreign policies (at least as
those policies are characterized), or both.
Evidence of a Lack of Hard Balancing
The empirical evidence consistently disappoints expectations of traditional

forms of balancing against the United States. This section ªrst justiªes a focus
on this evidence and then examines it.
justifying a focus on hard balancing

Some international relations theorists appear to have concluded that measure-
ments of traditional balancing behavior since September 11 are irrelevant to
assessing the strength of impulses to balance the United States. They have
done so because they assume that other states cannot compete militarily with
the United States. Therefore, they conclude, any absence of hard balancing that
may (well) be detected would simply reºect structural limits on these states’
capabilities, and does not constitute meaningful evidence about their inten-
tions. Evidence of such an absence can thus be dismissed as analytically
meaningless to this topic. We dispute this and argue instead that evidence con-
cerning traditional balancing behavior is analytically signiªcant.
William Wohlforth argues that the United States enjoys such a large margin
of superiority over every other state in all the important dimensions of power
(military, economic, technological, geopolitical, etc.) that an extensive counter-
balancing coalition is infeasible, both because of the sheer size of the U.S. mili-
tary effort and the huge coordination issues involved in putting together such
a counterbalancing coalition.19 This widely cited argument is invoked by theo-
rists of soft balancing to explain, and explain away, the absence of traditional
balancing, at least for now.20
Wohlforth’s main conclusion on this matter is unconvincing empirically. As
a result, the claim that the absence of hard balancing does not reveal intentions
is unconvincing analytically. There is certainly a steep disparity in worldwide
19. Additionally, “Efforts to produce a counterbalance globally will generate powerful counter-
vailing action locally,” thus undermining the effort. William C. Wohlforth, “The Stability of a Uni-
polar World,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Summer 1999), p. 28.
20. See, for example, Stephen M. Walt, “Can the United States Be Balanced? If So, How?” paper
prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois,
September 2–5, 2004, p. 14; and Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar
World,” pp. 2–3. Both Walt and Pape stress the coordination aspects in particular.
levels of defense spending. Those levels fell almost everywhere after the end of
the Cold War, but they fell more steeply and more durably in other parts of the
world, which resulted in a widening U.S. lead in military capabilities. Even
Europe’s sophisticated militaries lack truly independent command, intelli-
gence, surveillance, and logistical capabilities. China, Russia, and others are
even less able to match the United States militarily. In 2005, for example, the
United States may well represent 50 percent of defense spending in the entire
world.
Although this conªguration of spending might appear to be a structural fact
in its own right, it is less the result of rigid constraints than of much more mal-
leable budgetary choices. Of course, it would be neither cheap nor easy to bal-
ance against a country as powerful as the United States. Observers might point
out that the United States was able to project enough power to help defeat
Wilhelmine Germany, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan; it managed to con-
tain the Soviet Union in Europe for half a century; and most recently it toppled
two governments on the other side of the world in a matter of weeks (the
Taliban in Afghanistan and the Baathist regime in Iraq). But it is easy to exag-
gerate the extent and effectiveness of American power, as the ongoing effort to
pacify Iraq suggests. The limits of U.S. military power might be showcased if
one imagines the tremendous difªculties the United States would face in try-
ing to conquer and control, say, China. Whether considered by population,
economic power, or military strength, various combinations of Britain, China,
France, Germany, Japan, and Russia—to name only a relatively small number
of major powers—would have more than enough actual and latent power to
check the United States. These powers have substantial latent capabilities for
balancing that they are unambiguously failing to mobilize.
Consider, for example, Europe alone. Although the military resources of the
twenty-ªve members of the European Union are often depicted as being vastly
overshadowed by those of the United States, these states have more troops un-
der arms than the United States: 1.86 million compared with 1.43 million.21 The
EU countries also have the organizational and technical skills to excel at com-
mand, control, and surveillance. They have the know-how to develop a wide
range of high-technology weapons. And they have the money to pay for them,
21. Of this, the ªfteen countries that were EU members before May 2004 have an estimated 1.55
million active military personnel. See International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Mili-
tary Balance, 2003–2004 (London: IISS, 2003), pp. 18, 35–79.
with a total gross domestic product (GDP) greater than that of the United
States: more than $12.5 trillion to the United States’ $11.7 trillion in 2004.22
It is true that the Europeans would have to pool resources and overcome all
the traditional problems of coordination and collective action common to
counterbalancing coalitions to compete with the United States strategically.
Even more problematic are tendencies to free ride or pass the buck inside bal-
ancing coalitions.23 But numerous alliances have nonetheless formed, and the
EU members would be a logical starting point because they have the lowest
barriers to collective action of perhaps any set of states in history. Just as im-
portant, as discussed below, the argument about coordination barriers seems
ill suited to the contemporary context because the other major powers are ap-
parently not even engaged in negotiations concerning the formation of a bal-
ancing coalition. Alternatively, dynamics of intraregional competition might
forestall global balancing. But this, too, is hardly a rigid obstacle in the face of a
commonly perceived threat. Certainly Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, and Joseph Sta-
lin after World War II all induced strange bedfellows to form alliances and per-
mitted several regional powers to mobilize without alarming their neighbors.
That said, even if resources can be linked, there are typically limits to how
much internal balancing can be undertaken by any set of powers, even
wealthy ones, given that they usually already devote a signiªcant proportion
of their resources to national security. But historical trends only highlight the
degree to which current spending levels are the result of choices rather than
structural constraints. The level of defense spending that contemporary econo-
mies are broadly capable of sustaining can be assessed by comparing current
spending to the military expenditures that West European NATO members—a
category of countries that substantively overlaps with the EU—maintained
less than twenty years ago, during the Cold War. In a number of cases, these
states are spending on defense at rates half (or less than half) those of the mid-
1980s (see Table 1).
Consider how a resumption of earlier spending levels would affect global
military expenditures today. In 2003 the United States spent approximately
$383 billion on defense. This was nearly twice the $190 billion spent by West
22. These ªgures are the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s estimates
for 2004. See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/48/4/33727936.pdf. Of this, the pre–May 2004 EU
members had a combined 2004 GDP of approximately $12 trillion. EU per capita income, of
course, is somewhat lower than in the United States, and dollar-denominated comparisons shift
with currency ºuctuations.
23. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 155–162.
Table 1. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, European NATO

Members, 1985 and 2002
Country 1985 2002
Belgium 2.9 1.3
Denmark 2.1 1.6
France 3.9 2.5
Germany 3.2 1.5
Greece 7.0 4.4
Italy 2.2 1.9
Luxembourg 1.0 0.9
Netherlands 2.9 1.6
Norway 2.8 1.9
Portugal 3.2 2.3
Spain 2.4 1.2
United Kingdom 5.2 2.4
SOURCE: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2003–2004 (Lon-
don: IISS, 2003), p. 335.
European NATO members. But if these same European countries had resumed
spending at the rates they successfully sustained in 1985, they would have
spent an additional $150 billion on defense in 2003. In that event, U.S. spend-
ing would have exceeded theirs by little more than 10 percent, well within his-
toric ranges of international military competition.24 Moreover, this underlying
capacity to fully, if not immediately, match the United States is further en-
hanced if one considers the latent capabilities of two or three other states, espe-
cially China’s manpower, Japan’s wealth and technology, and Russia’s
extensive arms production capabilities.
In sum, it appears that if there were a will to balance the United States, there
would be a way. And if traditional balancing is in fact an option available to
contemporary great powers, then whether or not they are even beginning to
exercise that option is of great analytic interest when one attempts to measure
the current strength of impulses to balance the United States.
International relations theorists have developed commonly accepted stan-
dards for measuring traditional balancing behavior. Fairly strictly deªned and
relatively veriªable criteria such as these have great value because they reveal
24. This estimate is calculated from individual country data on military expenditure in local cur-
rency available from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, http://www.sipri.org/
contents/milap/milex/mex_database1.html; GDP for eurozone countries from Eurostat, http://
epp.eurostat.cec.eu; and GDP for non-eurozone countries from UN Statistics Division, “National
Accounts Main Aggregates Database,” http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/Introduction.asp.
behavior—costly behavior signifying actual intent—that can be distinguished

from the diplomatic friction that routinely occurs between almost all countries,
even allies.
We use conventional measurements for traditional balancing. The most im-
portant and widely used criteria concern internal and external balancing and
the establishment of diplomatic “red lines.” Internal balancing occurs when
states invest heavily in defense by transforming their latent power (i.e., eco-
nomic, technological, social, and natural resources) into military capabilities.
External balancing occurs when states seek to form military alliances against
the predominant power.25 Diplomatic red lines send clear signals to the aggres-
sor that states are willing to take costly actions to check the dominant power if
it does not respect certain boundaries of behavior.26 Only the last of these mea-
surements involves the emergence of open confrontation, much less the out-
break of hostilities. The other two concern instead states’ investments in
coercive resources and the pooling of such resources.
examining evidence of internal balancing

Since the end of the Cold War, no major power in the international system ap-
pears to be engaged in internal balancing against the United States, with the
possible exception of China. Such balancing would be marked by meaning-
fully increased defense spending, the implementation of conscription or other
means of enlarging the ranks of people under arms, or substantially expanded
investment in military research and technology.
To start, consider the region best positioned economically for balancing:
Europe. Estimates of military spending as a share of the overall economy vary
because they rely on legitimately disputable methods of calculation. But recent
estimates show that spending by most EU members fell after the Cold War to
rates one-half (or less) the U.S. rate. And unlike in the United States, spending
has not risen appreciably since September 11 and the lead-up to the Iraq war,
and in many cases it has continued to fall (see Table 2).
In the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Sweden, military spending
has been substantially reduced even since September 11 and the lead-up to the
invasion of Iraq. Several recent spending upticks are modest and predomi-
25. Waltz sums up the basic choice: “As nature abhors a vacuum, so international politics abhors
unbalanced power. Faced with unbalanced power, some states try to increase their own strength
or they ally with others to bring the international distribution of power into balance.” Waltz,
“Structural Realism after the Cold War,” p. 28. On internal and external balancing more generally,
see Waltz, Theory of International Politics, p. 118.
26. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 156–157.
Table 2. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, 2000–03

Country 2000 2001 2002 2003
United States 3.10 3.12 3.44 4.11
Austria 0.84 0.78 0.76 0.78
Belgium 1.40 1.34 1.29 1.29
Denmark 1.51 1.59 1.56 1.57
France 2.58 2.52 2.53 2.58
Germany 1.51 1.48 1.48 1.45
Greece 4.87 4.57 4.31 4.14
Italy 2.09 2.02 2.06 1.88
Netherlands 1.61 1.62 1.61 1.60
Portugal 2.07 2.11 2.14 2.14
Spain 1.25 1.22 1.21 1.18
Sweden 2.03 1.91 1.84 1.75
United Kingdom 2.47 2.46 2.40 2.37
NOTE: Percentages were calculated with individual country data on military expenditure in
local currency at current prices taken from Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_database1.html; and on gross
domestic product at current prices from UN Statistics Division, “National Accounts Main
Aggregates Database,” http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/Introduction.asp.
nantly designed to address in-country terrorism. Long-standing EU plans to

deploy a non-NATO rapid reaction force of 60,000 troops do not undermine
this analysis. This light force is designed for quick deployment to local-conºict
zones such as the Balkans and Africa; it is neither designed nor suited for con-
tinental defense against a strategic competitor.
In April 2003 Belgium, France, Luxembourg, and Germany (the key player
in any potential European counterweight) announced an increase in coopera-
tion in both military spending and coordination. But since then, Germany’s
government has instead trimmed its already modest spending, and in 2003–04
cut its military acquisitions and participation in several joint European weap-
ons programs. Germany is now spending GDP on the military at a rate of un-
der 1.5 percent (a rate that is declining), compared with around 4 percent by
the United States in 2003, a rate that is growing.
Alternative explanations for this spending pattern only undercut the logical
basis of balancing predictions. For example, might European defense spending
be constrained by sizable welfare-state commitments and by budget deªcit
limits related to the common European currency? Both of these constraints are
self-imposed and can easily be construed to reveal stronger commitments to
entitlement programs and to technical aspects of a common currency than to
the priority of generating defenses against a supposed potential strategic
threat.27 This contrasts sharply with the United States, which, having unam-
biguously perceived a serious threat, has carried out a formidable military
buildup since September 11, even at the expense of growing budget deªcits.
Some analysts also argue that any European buildup is hampered deliber-
ately by the United States, which encourages divisions among even traditional
allies and seeks to keep their militaries “deformed” as a means of thwarting ef-
forts to form a balancing coalition. For example, Layne asserts that the United
States is “actively discouraging Europe from either collective, or national, ef-
forts to acquire the full-spectrum of advanced military capabilities . . . [and] is
engaged in a game of divide and rule in a bid to thwart the E.U.’s political
uniªcation process.”28 But the fact remains that the United States could not
prohibit Europeans or others from developing those capabilities if those coun-
tries faced strong enough incentives to balance.
Regions other than Europe do not clearly diverge from this pattern. Defense
spending as a share of GDP has on the whole fallen since the end of the Cold
War in sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, Central and South Asia, and the
Middle East and North Africa, and it has remained broadly steady in most
cases in the past several years.29 Russia has slightly increased its share of de-
fense spending since 2001 (see Table 3), but this has nothing to do with an at-
tempt to counterbalance the United States.30 Instead, the salient factors are the
continuing campaign to subdue the insurgency in Chechnya and a dire need to
forestall further military decline (made possible by a slightly improved overall
budgetary situation). That Russians are unwilling to incur signiªcant costs to
counter U.S. power is all the more telling given the expansion of NATO to
Russia’s frontiers and the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Antiballistic Mis-
sile Treaty and deploy missile defenses.
China, on the other hand, is engaged in a strategic military buildup. Al-
though military expenditures are notoriously difªcult to calculate for that
country, the best estimates suggest that China has slightly increased its share
of defense spending in recent years (see Table 3). This buildup, however, has
been going on for decades, that is, long before September 11 and the Bush ad-
ministration’s subsequent strategic response.31 Moreover, the growth in Chi-
27. Moreover, neither constraint applies to Japan, which enjoys the second-largest economy in the
world, has been a relatively modest welfare state, and since the mid-1990s has had extensive expe-
rience with budget deªcits—and yet has not raised its military expenditures in recent years.
28. Layne, “America as European Hegemon,” p. 25.
29. IISS, The Military Balance, 2004–2005 (London: IISS, 2004).
30. See William C. Wohlforth, “Revisiting Balance of Power Theory in Central Eurasia,” in Paul,
Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 214–238.
31. Measuring rates of military spending as a percentage of GDP as an indication of military
Table 3. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, Selected

Regional Powers, 2000–03
Country 2000 2001 2002 2003
Brazil 1.27 1.45 1.56 1.52
China 2.04 2.24 2.40 2.35
India 2.33 2.31 2.25 2.29
Japan 0.96 0.98 0.99 0.99
Russia 3.73 4.09 4.06 4.30
NOTE: Percentages were calculated with individual country data on military expenditure in
local currency at current prices taken from Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, http://www.sipri.org/contents/milap/milex/mex_database1.html; and on gross
domestic product at current prices from UN Statistics Division, “National Accounts Main
Aggregates Database,” http://unstats.un.org/unsd/snaama/Introduction.asp.
nese conventional capabilities is primarily driven by the Taiwan problem: in

the short term, China needs to maintain the status quo and prevent Taiwan
from acquiring the relative power necessary to achieve full independence; in
the long term, China seeks uniªcation of Taiwan with the mainland. China
clearly would like to enhance its relative power vis-à-vis the United States and
may well have a long-term strategy to balance U.S. power in the future.32 But
China’s defense buildup is not new, nor is it as ambitious and assertive as it
should be if the United States posed a direct threat that required internal bal-
ancing. (For example, the Chinese strategic nuclear modernization program is
often mentioned in the course of discussions of Chinese balancing behavior,
but the Chinese arsenal is about the same size as it was a decade ago.33 More-
over, even if China is able to deploy new missiles in the next few years, it is not
clear whether it will possess a survivable nuclear retaliatory capability vis-à-
buildups—which is the conventional practice and a good one in the case of stable economies—can
be deceptive for countries with fast-growing economies, such as China. Maintaining a steady
share of GDP on military spending during a period in which GDP is rapidly growing essentially
means that a state is engaging in a military buildup. Indeed, China has not greatly increased its
military spending as a share of GDP, but it is conventional wisdom that the Chinese are moderniz-
ing and expanding their military forces. The point does not, however, undermine the fact that the
Chinese buildup predates the Bush administration’s post–September 11 grand strategy.
32. See Robert S. Ross, “Bipolarity and Balancing in East Asia,” in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Bal-
ance of Power, pp. 267–304. Although Ross believes the balance of power in East Asia will remain
stable for a long time, largely because the United States is expanding its degree of military superi-
ority, he characterizes Chinese behavior as internal (and external) balancing against the United
States.
33. Jeffrey Lewis, “The Ambiguous Arsenal,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 61, No. 3 (May/
June 2005), pp. 52–59.
vis the United States.) Thus, China’s defense buildup is not a persuasive indi-
cator of internal balancing against the post–September 11 United States
speciªcally.
In sum, rather than the United States’ post–September 11 policies inducing a
noticeable shift in the military expenditures of other countries, the latters’
spending patterns are instead characterized by a striking degree of continuity
before and after this supposed pivot point in U.S. grand strategy.
assessing evidence of external balancing

A similar pattern of continuity can be seen in the absence of new alliances.
Using widely accepted criteria, experts agree that external balancing against
the United States would be marked by the formation of alliances (including
lesser defense agreements), discussions concerning the formation of such alli-
ances or, at the least, discussions about shared interests in defense cooperation
against the United States.
Instead of September 11 serving as a pivot point, there is little visible change
in the alliance patterns of the late 1990s—even with the presence of what
might be called an “alliance facilitator” in President Jacques Chirac’s France.
At least for now, diplomatic resistance to U.S. actions is strictly at the level of
maneuvering and talk, indistinguishable from the friction routine to virtually
all periods and countries, even allies. Resources have not been transferred
from some great powers to others. And the United States’ core alliances,
NATO and the U.S.-Japan alliance, have both been reafªrmed.
Walt recognized in 2002 that Russian-Chinese relations fell “well short of
formal defense arrangements” and hence did not constitute external balanc-
ing; this continues to be the case.34 Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ex-
pressed hope that India becomes a great power to help re-create a multipolar
world hardly rises to the standard of external balancing. Certainly few would
suggest that the Indo-Russian “strategic pact” of 2000, the Sino-Russian
“friendship treaty” of 2001, or media speculation of a Moscow-Beijing-
Delhi “strategic triangle” in 2002 and 2003 are as consequential as, say, the
Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894 or even the less-formal U.S.-Chinese balanc-
ing against the Soviet Union in the 1970s.35 In 2002–03 Russia, China, and sev-
eral EU members broadly coordinated diplomatically against granting
34. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance,’” p. 126.

35. Arguing that a “strategic triangle” between Russia, China, and India is unlikely, in large part
because U.S. ties with each of these countries are stronger than any two of them have between
themselves, is Harsh V. Pant, “The Moscow-Beijing-Delhi ‘Strategic Triangle’: An Idea Whose Time
May Never Come,” Security Dialogue, Vol. 35, No. 3 (September 2004), pp. 311–328.
international-institutional approval to the 2003 Iraq invasion, but there is no

evidence that this extended at the time, or has extended since, to anything be-
yond that single goal. The EU’s common defense policy is barely more devel-
oped than it was before 2001. And although survey data suggest that many
Europeans would like to see the EU become a superpower comparable to the
United States, most are unwilling to boost military spending to accomplish
that goal.36 Even the institutional path toward Europe becoming a plausible
counterweight to the United States appears to have suffered a major setback
by the decisive rejection of the proposed EU constitution in referenda in France
and the Netherlands in the spring of 2005.
Even states with predominantly Muslim populations do not reveal incipient
enhanced coordination against the United States. Regional states such as Jor-
dan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia cooperated with the Iraq invasion; more have
sought to help stabilize postwar Iraq; and key Muslim countries are cooperat-
ing with the United States in the war against Islamist terrorists.
Even the loosest criteria for external balancing are not being met. For the
moment at least, no countries are known even to be discussing and debating
how burdens could or should be distributed in any arrangement for coordinat-
ing defenses against or confronting the United States. For this reason, the argu-
ment (discussed further below) that external balancing may be absent because
it is by nature slow and inefªcient and fraught with buck-passing behavior is
not persuasive. No friction exists in negotiations over who should lead or bear
the costs in a coalition because no such discussions appear to exist.
evaluating evidence of diplomatic red lines

A ªnal possible indicator of traditional balancing behavior would be states
sending “clear signals to the aggressor . . . that they are ªrmly committed to
maintaining the balance of power, even if it means going to war.”37 This form
of balancing has clearly been absent. There has been extensive criticism of spe-
ciªc post–September 11 U.S. policies, especially criticism of the invasion of Iraq
as unnecessary and unwise. No states or collections of states, however, issued
an ultimatum in the matter—drawing a line in the Persian Gulf sand and
warning the United States not to cross it—at the risk that confrontational steps
would be taken in response.
Perhaps a more generous version of the red-lines criterion would see evi-
36. German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Compagnia di San Paolo, Transatlantic
Trends, 2004, http://www.transatlantictrends.org.
37. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 156.
dence of balancing in a consistent pattern of diplomatic resistance, not concili-

ation. A recent spate of commentary about soft balancing does just this.
Evidence of a Lack of Soft Balancing
In the absence of evidence of traditional balancing, some scholars have ad-

vanced the concept of soft balancing. Instead of overtly challenging U.S.
power, which might be too costly or unappealing, states are said to be able to
undertake a host of lesser actions as a way of constraining and undermining it.
The central claim is that the unilateralist and provocative behavior of the
United States is generating unprecedented resentment that will make life
difªcult for Washington and may eventually evolve into traditional hard bal-
ancing.38 As Walt writes, “States may not want to attract the ‘focused enmity’
of the United States, but they may be eager to limit its freedom of action, com-
plicate its diplomacy, sap its strength and resolve, maximize their own auton-
omy and reafªrm their own rights, and generally make the United States work
harder to achieve its objectives.”39 For Josef Joffe, “‘Soft balancing’ against Mr.
Big has already set in.”40 Pape proclaims that “the early stages of soft balanc-
ing against American power have already started,” and argues that “unless
the United States radically changes course, the use of international institu-
tions, economic leverage, and diplomatic maneuvering to frustrate American
intentions will only grow.”41
We offer two critiques of these claims. First, if we consider the speciªc pre-
dictions suggested by these theorists on their own terms, we do not ªnd per-
suasive evidence of soft balancing. Second, these criteria for detecting soft
balancing are, on reºection, inherently ºawed because they do not (and possi-
bly cannot) offer effective means for distinguishing soft balancing from routine
diplomatic friction between countries. These are, in that sense, nonfalsiªable
claims.
38. Layne writes, “By facilitating ‘soft balancing’ against the United States, the Iraq crisis may
have paved the way for ‘hard’ balancing as well.” Layne, “America as European Hegemon,” p. 27.
See also Walt, “Can the United States Be Balanced?” p. 18; and Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States
Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” p. 27. See also Paul, “Introduction,” in Paul, Wirtz, and
Fortmann, Balance of Power, pp. 2–4, 11–17.
39. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance,’” p. 136; and Walt, “Can the United States Be
Balanced?”
40. Josef Joffe, “Gulliver Unbound: Can America Rule the World?” August 6, 2003, http://
www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/08/05/1060064182993.html.
41. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” p. 29; and Pape, “The
World Pushes Back.”
evaluating soft-balancing predictions

Theorists have offered several criteria for judging the presence of soft balanc-
ing. We consider four frequently invoked ones: states’ efforts (1) to entangle
the dominant state in international institutions, (2) to exclude the dominant
state from regional economic cooperation, (3) to undermine the dominant
state’s ability to project military power by restricting or denying military bas-
ing rights, and (4) to provide relevant assistance to U.S. adversaries such as
rogue states.42
entangling international institutions. Are other states using interna-
tional institutions to constrain or undermine U.S. power? The notion that they
could do so is based on faulty logic. Because the most powerful states exercise
the most control in these institutions, it is unreasonable to expect that their
rules and procedures can be used to shackle and restrain the world’s most
powerful state. As Randall Schweller notes, institutions cannot be simulta-
neously autonomous and capable of binding strong states.43 Certainly what re-
sistance there was to endorsing the U.S.-led action in Iraq did not stop or
meaningfully delay that action.
Is there evidence, however, that other states are even trying to use a web of
global institutional rules and procedures or ad hoc diplomatic maneuvers to
constrain U.S. behavior and delay or disrupt military actions? No attempt was
made to block the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, and both the war and the en-
suing stabilization there have been almost entirely conducted through an in-
ternational institution: NATO. Although a number of countries refused to
endorse the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, none sought to use international institu-
tions to block or declare illegal that invasion. Logically, such action should be
the benchmark for this aspect of soft balancing, not whether states voted for
the invasion. No evidence exists that such an effort was launched or that one
would have succeeded had it been. Moreover, since the Iraqi regime was top-
pled, the UN has endorsed and assisted the transition to Iraqi sovereignty.44
If anything, other states’ ongoing cooperation with the United States ex-
42. These and other soft-balancing predictions can be found in Walt, “Can the United States Be
Balanced?”; Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” pp. 27–29;
and Pape, “Soft Balancing: How the World Will Respond to U.S. Preventive War on Iraq.”
43. Randall L. Schweller, “The Problem of International Order Revisited: A Review Essay,” Inter-
national Security, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Summer 2001), p. 182.
44. Before the invasion, Pape predicted that “after the war, Europe, Russia, and China could press
hard for the United Nations rather than the United States to oversee a new Iraqi government. Even
if they didn’t succeed, this would reduce the freedom of action for the United States in Iraq and
elsewhere in the region.” See Pape, “Soft Balancing: How the World Will Respond to U.S. Preven-
tive War on Iraq.” As we note above, the transitional process was in fact endorsed by the Bush ad-
ministration, and if anything, it has pressed for greater UN participation, which China, France,
plains why international institutions continue to amplify American power and

facilitate the pursuit of its strategic objectives. As we discuss below, the war on
terror is being pursued primarily through regional institutions, bilateral ar-
rangements, and new multilateral institutions, most obviously the Prolifera-
tion Security and Container Security Initiatives, both of which have attracted
new adherents since they were launched.45
economic statecraft. Is post–September 11 regional economic coopera-
tion increasingly seeking to exclude the United States so as to make the bal-
ance of power less favorable to it? The answer appears to be no. The United
States has been one of the primary drivers of trade regionalization, not the ex-
cluded party. This is not surprising given that most states, including those
with the most power, have good reason to want lower, not higher, trade barri-
ers around the large and attractive U.S. market.
This rationale applies, for instance, to suits brought in the World Trade Or-
ganization against certain U.S. trade policies. These suits are generally aimed
at gaining access to U.S. markets, not sidelining them. For example, the suits
challenging agricultural subsidies are part of a general challenge by develop-
ing countries to Western (including European) trade practices.46 Moreover,
many of these disputes predate September 11; therefore, relabeling them a
form of soft balancing in reaction to post–September 11 U.S. strategy is not
credible. For the moment, there also does not appear to be any serious discus-
sion of a coordinated decision to price oil in euros, which might undercut the
United States’ ability to run large trade and budget deªcits without propor-
tional increases in inºation and interest rates.47
restrictions on basing rights/territorial denial. The geographical
isolation of the United States could effectively diminish its relative power ad-
vantage. This prediction appears to be supported by Turkey’s denial of the
Bush administration’s request to provide coalition ground forces with transit
and Russia, among others, have resisted. This constitutes resistance to U.S. requests, but it hardly
constitutes use of institutions to constrain U.S. action.
45. The Proliferation Security Initiative’s initial members were Australia, Britain, Canada, France,
Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, and the
United States.
46. The resistance of France and others to agricultural trade liberalization could be interpreted as
an attempt to limit U.S. economic power by restricting access to their markets by highly competi-
tive U.S. agribusiness. But then, presumably, contrasting support for liberalization by most devel-
oping countries would have to be interpreted as expressing support for expanded U.S. power.
47. For an insightful discussion of why this may well remain the case, see Herman Schwartz, “Ties
That Bind: Global Macroeconomic Flows and America’s Financial Empire,” paper prepared for the
annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, September 2–5,
2004.
rights for the invasion of Iraq, and possibly by diminished Saudi support for
bases there. In addition, Pape suggests that countries such as Germany, Japan,
and South Korea will likely impose new restrictions or reductions on U.S.
forces stationed on their soil.
The overall U.S. overseas basing picture, however, looks brighter today than
it did only a few years ago. Since September 11 the United States has estab-
lished new bases and negotiated landing rights across Africa, Asia, Central
Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. All told, it has built, upgraded, or ex-
panded military facilities in Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Diego Garcia, Djibouti,
Georgia, Hungary, Iraq, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines,
Poland, Qatar, Romania, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.48
The diplomatic details of the basing issue also run contrary to soft-balancing
predictions. Despite occasionally hostile domestic opinion surveys, most host
countries do not want to see the withdrawal of U.S. forces. The economic and
strategic beneªts of hosting bases outweigh purported desires to make it more
difªcult for the United States to exercise power. For example, the Philippines
asked the United States to leave Subic Bay in the 1990s (well before the emer-
gence of the Bush Doctrine), but it has been angling ever since for a return.
U.S. plans to withdraw troops from South Korea are facing local resistance and
have triggered widespread anxiety about the future of the United States’ secu-
rity commitment to the peninsula.49 German defense ofªcials and businesses
are displeased with the U.S. plan to replace two army divisions in Germany
with a single light armored brigade and transfer a wing of F-16 ªghter jets to
Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.50 (Indeed, Turkey recently agreed to allow the
48. See James Sterngold, “After 9/11, U.S. Policy Built on World Bases,” San Francisco Chronicle,
March 21, 2004, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040321-world-bases.htm; David
Rennie, “America’s Growing Network of Bases,” Daily Telegraph, September 11, 2003, http://
www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030911-deployments01.htm; and “Worldwide Reorien-
tation of U.S. Military Basing in Prospect,” Center for Defense Information, September 19, 2003,
and “Worldwide Reorientation of U.S. Military Basing, Part 2: Central Asia, Southwest Asia, and
the Paciªc,” Center for Defense Information, October 7, 2003, http://www.cdi.org/program/
documents.cfm?ProgramID-37.
49. Strategic and economic worries are easily intertwined. In response to prospective changes in
U.S. policy, the South Korean defense ministry is seeking a 13 percent increase in its 2005 budget
request. See “U.S. Troop Withdrawals from South Korea,” IISS Strategic Comments, Vol. 10, No. 5
(June 2004). Pape suggests both that Japan and South Korea could ask all U.S. forces to leave their
territory and that they do not want the United States to leave because it is a potentially indispens-
able support for the status quo in the region. See Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Secu-
rity in a Unipolar World.”
50. “Proposed U.S. Base Closures Send a Shiver through a German Town,” New York Times, Au-
gust 22, 2004.
United States expanded use of the base as a major hub for deliveries to Iraq
and Afghanistan.)51
The recently announced plan to redeploy or withdraw up to 70,000 U.S.
troops from Cold War bases in Asia and Europe is not being driven by host-
country rejection, but by a reassessment of global threats to U.S. interests and
the need to bolster American power-projection capabilities.52 If anything, the
United States has the freedom to move forces out of certain countries because
it has so many options about where else to send them, in this case closer to the
Middle East and other regions crucial to the war on terror. For example, the
United States is discussing plans to concentrate all special operations and anti-
terrorist units in Europe in a single base in Spain—a country presumably
primed for soft balancing against the United States given its newly elected
prime minister’s opposition to the war in Iraq—so as to facilitate an increasing
number of military operations in sub-Saharan Africa.53
the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Finally, as Pape asserts, if “Europe,
Russia, China, and other important regional states were to offer economic and
technological assistance to North Korea, Iran, and other ‘rogue states,’ this
would strengthen these states, run counter to key Bush administration poli-
cies, and demonstrate the resolve to oppose the United States by assisting its
enemies.”54 Pape presumably has in mind Russian aid to Iran in building nu-
clear power plants (with the passive acquiescence of Europeans), South Ko-
rean economic assistance to North Korea, previous French and Russian
resistance to sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and perhaps Pakistan’s
weapons of mass destruction (WMD) assistance to North Korea, Iraq, and
Libya.
There are at least two reasons to question whether any of these actions is evi-
dence of soft balancing. First, none of this so-called cooperation with U.S. ad-
versaries is unambiguously driven by a strategic logic of undermining U.S.
power. Instead, other explanations are readily at hand. South Korean economic
aid to North Korea is better explained by purely local motivations: common
ethnic bonds in the face of famine and deprivation, and Seoul’s fears of the
consequences of any abrupt collapse of the North Korean regime. The other
51. “Turkey OKs Expanded U.S. Use of Key Air Base,” Los Angeles Times, May 3, 2005.
52. Kurt Campbell and Celeste Johnson Ward, “New Battle Stations?” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 5
(September/October 2003), pp. 95–103.
53. “Spain, U.S. to Mull Single Europe Special Ops Base—Report,” Wall Street Journal, May 2, 2005.
54. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How the World Will Respond to U.S. Preventive War on Iraq”; and
Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Security in a Unipolar World,” pp. 31–32.
cases of “cooperation” appear to be driven by a common nonstrategic motiva-

tion: pecuniary gain. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear pro-
gram, was apparently motivated by proªts when he sold nuclear technology
and methods to several states. And given its domestic economic problems and
severe troubles in Chechnya, Russia appears far more interested in making
money from Iran than in helping to bring about an “Islamic bomb.”55 The
quest for lucrative contracts provides at least as plausible, if banal, an explana-
tion for French cooperation with Saddam Hussein.
Moreover, this soft-balancing claim runs counter to diverse multilateral
nonproliferation efforts aimed at Iran, North Korea, and Libya (before its deci-
sion to abandon its nuclear program). The Europeans have been quite vocal in
their criticism of Iranian noncompliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty and
International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines, and the Chinese and Rus-
sians are actively cooperating with the United States and others over North
Korea. The EU’s 2003 European security strategy document declares that
rogue states “should understand that there is a price to be paid” for their be-
havior, “including in their relationship” with the EU.56 These major powers
have a declared disinterest in aiding rogue states above and beyond what they
might have to lose by attracting the focused enmity of the United States.
In sum, the evidence for claims and predictions of soft balancing is poor.
distinguishing soft balancing from traditional diplomatic friction

There is a second, more important, reason to be skeptical of soft-balancing
claims. The criteria they offer for detecting the presence of soft balancing are
conceptually ºawed. Walt deªnes soft balancing as “conscious coordination of
diplomatic action in order to obtain outcomes contrary to U.S. preferences,
outcomes that could not be gained if the balancers did not give each other
some degree of mutual support.”57 This and other accounts are problematic in
a crucial way. Conceptually, seeking outcomes that a state (such as the United
States) does not prefer does not necessarily or convincingly reveal a desire to
balance that state geostrategically. For example, one trading partner often
seeks outcomes that the other does not prefer, without balancing being rele-
vant to the discussion. Thus, empirically, the types of events used to
55. The importance of the sums Russia is earning, compared to its military spending and arms ex-
ports, is suggested in IISS, Military Balance, 2003–2004, pp. 270–271, 273.
56. European Union, “A Secure Europe in a Better World: European Security Strategy,” Brussels,
December 12, 2003, http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/78367.pdf.
57. Walt, “Can the United States Be Balanced?” p. 14.
operationalize deªnitions such as Walt’s do not clearly establish the crucial

claim of soft-balancing theorists: states’ desires to balance the United States.
Widespread anti-Americanism can be present (and currently seems to be)
without that fact persuasively revealing impulses to balance the United States.
The events used to detect the presence of soft balancing are so typical in his-
tory that they are not, and perhaps cannot be, distinguished from routine dip-
lomatic friction between countries, even between allies. Traditional balancing
criteria are useful because they can reasonably, though surely not perfectly,
help distinguish between real balancing behavior and policies or diplomatic
actions that may look and sound like an effort to check the power of the domi-
nant state but that in actuality reºect only cheap talk, domestic politics, other
international goals not related to balances of power, or the resentment of par-
ticular leaders. The current formulation of the concept of soft balancing is not
distinguished from such behavior. Even if the predictions were correct, they
would not unambiguously or even persuasively reveal balancing behavior,
soft or otherwise.
Our criticism is validated by the long list of events from 1945 to 2001 that are
directly comparable to those that are today coded as soft balancing. These
events include diplomatic maneuvering by U.S. allies and nonaligned coun-
tries against the United States in international institutions (particularly the
UN), economic statecraft aimed against the United States, resistance to U.S.
military basing, criticism of U.S. military interventions, and waves of anti-
Americanism.
In the 1950s a West Europe–only bloc was formed, designed partly as a polit-
ical and economic counterweight to the United States within the so-called free
world, and France created an independent nuclear capability. In the 1960s a
cluster of mostly developing countries organized the Nonaligned Movement,
deªning itself against both superpowers. France pulled out of NATO’s mili-
tary structure. Huge demonstrations worldwide protested the U.S. war in Viet-
nam and other U.S. Cold War policies. In the 1970s the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries wielded its oil weapon to punish U.S. policies
in the Middle East and transfer substantial wealth from the West. Waves of ex-
tensive anti-Americanism were pervasive in Latin America in the 1950s and
1960s, and Europe and elsewhere in the late 1960s and early 1970s and again in
the early-to-mid 1980s. Especially prominent protests and harsh criticism from
intellectuals and local media were mounted against U.S. policies toward Cen-
tral America under President Ronald Reagan, the deployment of theater nu-
clear weapons in Europe, and the very idea of missile defense. In the Reagan
era, many states coordinated to protect existing UN practices, promote the

1982 Law of the Sea treaty, and oppose aid to the Nicaraguan Contras. In the
1990s the Philippines asked the United States to leave its Subic Bay military
base; China continued a long-standing military buildup; and China, France,
and Russia coordinated to resist UN-sanctioned uses of force against Iraq.
China and Russia declared a strategic partnership in 1996. In 1998 the “Euro-
pean troika” meetings and agreements began between France, Germany, and
Russia, and the EU announced the creation of an independent, uniªed Euro-
pean military force. In many of these years, the United States was engaged in
numerous trade clashes, including with close EU allies. Given all this, it is
not surprising that contemporary scholars and commentators periodic-
ally identiªed “crises” in U.S. relations with the world, including within the
Atlantic Alliance.58
These events all rival in seriousness the categories of events that some schol-
ars today identify as soft balancing. Indeed, they are not merely difªcult to dis-
tinguish conceptually from those later events; in many cases they are
impossible to distinguish empirically, being literally the same events or trends
that are currently labeled soft balancing. Yet they all occurred in years in which
even soft-balancing theorists agree that the United States was not being bal-
anced against.59 It is thus unclear whether accounts of soft balancing have pro-
vided criteria for crisply and rigorously distinguishing that concept from these
and similar manifestations of diplomatic friction routine to many periods of
history, even in relations between countries that remain allies rather than stra-
tegic competitors. For example, these accounts provide no method for judging
whether post–September 11 international events constitute soft balancing,
whereas similar phenomena during Reagan’s presidency—the spread of anti-
Americanism, coordination against the United States in international institu-
tions, criticism of interventions in the developing countries, and so on—do
not. Without effective criteria for making such distinctions, current claims of
soft balancing risk blunting rather than advancing knowledge about interna-
tional political dynamics.
In sum, we detect no persuasive evidence that U.S. policy is provoking the
58. See, for example, Eliot A. Cohen, “The Long-Term Crisis of the Alliance,” Foreign Affairs, Vol.
61, No. 2 (Winter 1982/83), pp. 325–343; Sanford J. Ungar, ed., Estrangement: America and the World
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); and Stephen M. Walt, “The Ties That Fray: Why Eu-
rope and America Are Drifting Apart,” National Interest, No. 54 (Winter 1998–99), pp. 3–11.
59. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance’”; and Pape, “Soft Balancing: How States Pursue Secu-
rity in a Unipolar World,” p. 13.
seismic shift in other states’ strategies toward the United States that theorists
of balancing identify.
Why Countries Are Not Balancing against the United States
The major powers are not balancing against the United States because of the
nature of U.S. grand strategy in the post–September 11 world. There is no
doubt that this strategy is ambitious, assertive, and backed by tremendous of-
fensive military capability. But it is also highly selective and not broadly
threatening. Speciªcally, the United States is focusing these means on the
greatest threats to its interests—that is, the threats emanating from nuclear
proliferator states and global terrorist organizations. Other major powers are
not balancing U.S. power because they want the United States to succeed in
defeating these shared threats or are ambivalent yet understand they are not in
its crosshairs. In many cases, the diplomatic friction identiªed by proponents
of the concept of soft balancing instead reºects disagreement about tactics, not
goals, which is nothing new in history.
To be sure, our analysis cannot claim to rule out other theories of great
power behavior that also do not expect balancing against the United States.
Whether the United States is not seen as a threat worth balancing because of
shared interests in nonproliferation and the war on terror (as we argue), be-
cause of geography and capability limitations that render U.S. global hege-
mony impossible (as some offensive realists argue), or because transnational
democratic values, binding international institutions, and economic interde-
pendence obviate the need to balance (as many liberals argue) is a task for fur-
ther theorizing and empirical analysis. Nor are we claiming that balancing
against the United States will never happen. Rather, there is no persuasive evi-
dence that U.S. policy is provoking the kind of balancing behavior that the
Bush administration’s critics suggest. In the meantime, analysts should con-
tinue to use credible indicators of balancing behavior in their search for signs
that U.S. strategy is having a counterproductive effect on U.S. security.
Below we discuss why the United States is not seen by other major powers
as a threat worth balancing. Next we argue that the impact of the U.S.-led in-
vasion of Iraq on international relations has been exaggerated and needs to be
seen in a broader context that reveals far more cooperation with the United
States than many analysts acknowledge. Finally, we note that something akin
to balancing is taking place among would-be nuclear proliferators and Islamist
extremists, which makes sense given that these are the threats targeted by the
United States.
the united states’ focused enmity

Great powers seek to organize the world according to their own preferences,
looking for opportunities to expand and consolidate their economic and mili-
tary power positions. Our analysis does not assume that the United States is an
exception. It can fairly be seen to be pursuing a hegemonic grand strategy and
has repeatedly acted in ways that undermine notions of deeply rooted shared
values and interests. U.S. objectives and the current world order, however, are
unusual in several respects. First, unlike previous states with preponderant
power, the United States has little incentive to seek to physically control for-
eign territory. It is secure from foreign invasion and apparently sees little
beneªt in launching costly wars to obtain additional material resources. More-
over, the bulk of the current international order suits the United States well.
Democracy is ascendant, foreign markets continue to liberalize, and no major
revisionist powers seem poised to challenge U.S. primacy.
This does not mean that the United States is a status quo power, as typically
deªned. The United States seeks to further expand and consolidate its power
position even if not through territorial conquest. Rather, U.S. leaders aim to
bolster their power by promoting economic growth, spending lavishly on mili-
tary forces and research and development, and dissuading the rise of any peer
competitor on the international stage. Just as important, the conºuence of the
proliferation of WMD and the rise of Islamist radicalism poses an acute danger
to U.S. interests. This means that U.S. grand strategy targets its assertive en-
mity only at circumscribed quarters, ones that do not include other great
powers.
The great powers, as well as most other states, either share the U.S. interest
in eliminating the threats from terrorism and WMD or do not feel that they
have a signiªcant direct stake in the matter. Regardless, they understand that
the United States does not have offensive designs on them. Consistent with
this proposition, the United States has improved its relations with almost all of
the major powers in the post–September 11 world. This is in no small part be-
cause these governments—not to mention those in key countries in the Middle
East and Southwest Asia, such as Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia—
are willing partners in the war on terror because they see Islamist radicalism as
a genuine threat to them as well. U.S. relations with China, India, and Russia,
in particular, are better than ever in large part because these countries similarly
have acute reasons to fear transnational Islamist terrorist groups. The EU’s
ofªcial grand strategy echoes that of the United States. The 2003 European se-
curity strategy document, which appeared months after the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq, identiªes terrorism by religious extremists and the proliferation of

WMD as the two greatest threats to European security. In language familiar to
students of the Bush administration, it declares that Europe’s “most frighten-
ing scenario is one in which terrorist groups acquire weapons of mass destruc-
tion.”60 It is thus not surprising that the major European states, including
France and Germany, are partners of the United States in the Proliferation
Security Initiative.
Certain EU members are not engaged in as wide an array of policies toward
these threats as the United States and other of its allies. European criticism of
the Iraq war is the preeminent example. But sharp differences over tactics
should not be confused with disagreement over broad goals. After all, compa-
rable disagreements, as well as incentives to free ride on U.S. efforts, were
common among several West European states during the Cold War when they
nonetheless shared with their allies the goal of containing the Soviet Union.61
In neither word nor deed, then, do these states manifest the degree or nature
of disagreement contained in the images of strategic rivalry on which balanc-
ing claims are based. Some other countries are bystanders. As discussed
above, free-riding and differences over tactics form part of the explanation for
this behavior. And some of these states simply feel less threatened by terrorist
organizations and WMD proliferators than the United States and others do.
The decision of these states to remain on the sidelines, however, and not seek
opportunities to balance, is crucial. There is no good evidence that these states
feel threatened by U.S. grand strategy.
In brief, other great powers appear to lack the motivation to compete strate-
gically with the United States under current conditions. Other major powers
might prefer a more generally constrained America or, to be sure, a world
where the United States was not as dominant, but this yearning is a long way
from active cooperation to undermine U.S. power or goals.
reductio ad iraq
Many accounts portray the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq as virtually of world-
historical importance, as an event that will mark “a fundamental transforma-
tion in how major states react to American power.”62 If the Iraq war is placed
60. European Union, “A Secure Europe in a Better World,” p. 4.

61. This was exempliªed in highly uneven defense spending across NATO members and in Euro-
pean criticism of the Vietnam War and U.S. nuclear policy toward the Soviet Union.
62. Pape, “Soft Balancing: How the World Will Respond to U.S. Preventive War on Iraq,” p. 1. See
in its broader context, however, the picture looks very different. That context is
provided when one considers the Iraq war within the scope of U.S. strategy in
the Middle East, the use of force within the context of the war on terror more
broadly, and the war on terror within U.S. foreign policy in general.
September 11, 2001, was the culmination of a series of terrorist attacks
against U.S. sites, soldiers, and assets in the Middle East, Africa, and North
America by al-Qaida, an organization that drew on resources of recruits,
ªnancing, and substantial (though apparently not majoritarian) mass-level
support from more than a dozen countries across North and East Africa, the
Arabian Peninsula, and Central and Southwest Asia. The political leadership
of the United States (as well as many others) perceived this as an accelerating
threat emerging from extremist subcultures and organizations in those coun-
tries. These groupings triggered fears of potentially catastrophic possession
and use of weapons of mass destruction, which have been gradually spreading
to more countries, including several with substantial historic ties to terrorist
groups. Just as important, U.S. leaders also traced these groupings backward
along the causal chain to diverse possible underlying economic, cultural, and
political conditions.63 The result is perception of a threat of an unusually wide
geographical area.
Yet the U.S. response thus far has involved the use of military force against
only two regimes: the Taliban, which allowed al-Qaida to establish its main
headquarters in Afghanistan, and the Baathists in Iraq, who were in long-
standing deªance of UN demands concerning WMD programs and had a his-
tory of both connections to diverse terrorist groups and a distinctive hostility
to the United States. U.S. policy toward other states, even in the Middle East,
has not been especially threatening. The United States has increased military
aid and other security assistance to several states, including Jordan, Morocco,
and Pakistan, bolstering their military capabilities rather than eroding them.
And the United States has not systematically intervened in the domestic poli-
tics of states in the region. The “greater Middle East initiative,” which was
ºoated by the White House early in 2004, originally aimed at profound eco-
nomic and political reforms, but it has since been trimmed in accordance with
also Layne, “The War on Terrorism and the Balance of Power”; and Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann,
Balance of Power, p. 119.
63. See, for example, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks upon the United States (New York: W.W. Norton, 2004), pp. 52–55.
the wishes of diverse states, including many in the Middle East. Bigger bud-
gets for the National Endowment for Democracy, the main U.S. entity charged
with democratization abroad, are being spent in largely nonprovocative ways,
and heavily disproportionately inside Iraq. In addition, Washington has
proved more than willing to work closely with authoritarian regimes in Ku-
wait, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.
Further, U.S. policy toward the Middle East and North Africa since Septem-
ber 11 must be placed in the larger context of the war on terror more broadly
construed. The United States is conducting that war virtually globally, but it
has not used force outside the Middle East/Southwest Asia region. The pri-
mary U.S. responses to September 11 in the Mideast and especially elsewhere
have been stepped-up diplomacy and stricter law enforcement, pursued pri-
marily bilaterally and through regional organizations. The main emphasis has
been on law enforcement: the tracing of terrorist ªnancing; intelligence gather-
ing; criminal-law surveillance of suspects; and arrests and trials in a number of
countries. The United States has also pursued a variety of multilateralist ef-
forts. Dealings with North Korea have been consistently multilateralist for
some time; the United States has primarily relied on the International Atomic
Energy Agency and the British-French-German troika for confronting Iran
over its nuclear program; and the Proliferation and Container Security Initia-
tives are new international organizations obviously born of U.S. convictions
that unilateral action in these matters was inadequate.
Finally, U.S. policy in the war on terror must be placed in the larger context
of U.S. foreign policy more generally. In matters of trade, bilateral and multi-
lateral economic development assistance, environmental issues, economically
driven immigration, and many other areas, U.S. policy was characterized by
broad continuity before September 11, and it remains so today. Government
policies on such issues form the core of the United States’ workaday interac-
tions with many states. It is difªcult to portray U.S. policy toward these states
as revisionist in any classical meaning of that term. Some who identify a revo-
lutionary shift in U.S. foreign policy risk badly exaggerating the signiªcance of
the Iraq war and are not paying sufªcient attention to many other important
trends and developments.64
64. See, for example, Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay, America Unbound: The Bush Revolution
in Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2003).
“asymmetric balancing”?
Very different U.S. policies, and very different local behavior, are of course vis-
ible for a small minority of states. U.S. policy toward terrorist organizations
and rogue states is confrontational and often explicitly contains threats of mili-
tary force. One might describe the behavior of these states and groups as forms
of “asymmetric balancing” against the United States.65 They wish to bring
about a retraction of U.S. power around the globe; unlike most states, they are
spending prodigiously on military capabilities; and they periodically seek al-
lies to frustrate U.S. goals. Given their limited means for engaging in tradi-
tional balancing, the options for these actors are to engage in terrorism to bring
about a collapse of support among the American citizenry for a U.S. military
and political presence abroad or to acquire nuclear weapons to deter the
United States. Al-Qaida and afªliated groups are pursuing the former option;
Iran and North Korea the latter.
Is this balancing? On the one hand, the attempt to check and roll back U.S.
power—be it through formal alliances, terrorist attacks, or the acquisition of a
nuclear deterrent—is what balancing is essentially about. If balancing is driven
by defensive motives, one might argue that the United States endangers al-
Qaida’s efforts to propagate radical Islamism and North Korea’s and Iran’s at-
tempts to acquire nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the notion that these
actors are status quo oriented and simply reacting to an increasingly powerful
United States is difªcult to sustain. Ultimately, the label “asymmetric balanc-
ing” does not capture the kind of behavior that international relations scholars
have in mind when they predict and describe balancing against the United
States in the wake of September 11 and the Iraq war.
Ironically, broadening the concept of balancing to include the behavior of
terrorist organizations and nuclear proliferators highlights several additional
problems for the larger balancing prediction thesis. First, the decisions by Iran
and North Korea to devote major resources to their individual military capa-
bilities despite limited means only strengthens our interpretation that major
powers, with much vaster resources, are abstaining from balancing because of
a lack of motivation, not a lack of latent power resources. Second, the radical
Islamist campaign against the United States and its allies is more than a decade
old, and the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs began well before
that, reinforcing our argument that the Bush administration’s grand strategy
and invasion of Iraq are far from the catalytic event for balancing that some an-
65. See Paul, “Introduction,” in Paul, Wirtz, and Fortmann, Balance of Power, p. 3.
alysts have portrayed it to be. Finally, much of the criticism that current U.S.
strategy is generating counterbalancing yields few policy options that would
actually eliminate or reduce asymmetric balancing.
Conclusion
Major powers have not engaged in traditional balancing against the United
States since the September 11 terrorist attacks and the lead-up to the Iraq war,
either in the form of domestic military mobilization, antihegemonic alliances,
or the laying-down of diplomatic red lines. Indeed, several major powers, in-
cluding those best positioned to mobilize coercive resources, are continuing to
reduce, rather than augment, their levels of resource mobilization. This evi-
dence runs counter to ad hoc predictions and international relations scholar-
ship that would lead one to expect such balancing under current conditions. In
that sense, this ªnding has implications not simply for current policymaking
but also for ongoing scholarly consideration of competing international rela-
tions theories and the plausibility of their underlying assumptions.
Current trends also do not conªrm recent claims of soft balancing against
the United States. And when these trends are placed in historical perspective,
it is unclear whether the categories of behaviors labeled “soft balancing” can
(ever) be rigorously distinguished from the types of diplomatic friction routine
to virtually all periods of history, even between allies. Indeed, some of the be-
havior currently labeled “soft balancing” is the same behavior that occurred in
earlier periods when, it is generally agreed, the United States was not being
balanced against.
The lack of an underlying motivation to compete strategically with the
United States under current conditions, not the lack of latent power potentiali-
ties, best explains this lack of balancing behavior, whether hard or soft. This is
the case, in turn, because most states are not threatened by a post–September
11 U.S. foreign policy that is, despite commentary to the contrary, highly selec-
tive in its use of force and multilateralist in many regards. In sum, the salient
dynamic in international politics today does not concern the way that major
powers are responding to the United States’ preponderance of power but in-
stead concerns the relationship between the United States (and its allies), on
the one hand, and terrorists and nuclear proliferators, on the other. So long as
that remains the case, anything akin to balancing behavior is likely only
among the narrowly circumscribed list of states and nonstate groups that are
directly threatened by the United States.

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Waiting for Balancing

Waiting for Balancing Keir A. Lieber and

International Security, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Summer 2005), pp. 109–139

Predictions of Balancing: International Relations Theory and

heralded the beginning of serious counter-hegemonic balancing against the

Evidence of a Lack of Hard Balancing

The empirical evidence consistently disappoints expectations of traditional

justifying a focus on hard balancing

Table 1. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, European NATO

behavior—costly behavior signifying actual intent—that can be distinguished

examining evidence of internal balancing

Table 2. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, 2000–03

nantly designed to address in-country terrorism. Long-standing EU plans to

Table 3. Military Spending as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product, Selected

nese conventional capabilities is primarily driven by the Taiwan problem: in

assessing evidence of external balancing

34. Walt, “Keeping the World ‘Off-Balance,’” p. 126.

international-institutional approval to the 2003 Iraq invasion, but there is no

evaluating evidence of diplomatic red lines

dence of balancing in a consistent pattern of diplomatic resistance, not concili-

Evidence of a Lack of Soft Balancing

In the absence of evidence of traditional balancing, some scholars have ad-

evaluating soft-balancing predictions

plains why international institutions continue to amplify American power and

cases of “cooperation” appear to be driven by a common nonstrategic motiva-

distinguishing soft balancing from traditional diplomatic friction

operationalize deªnitions such as Walt’s do not clearly establish the crucial

era, many states coordinated to protect existing UN practices, promote the

Why Countries Are Not Balancing against the United States

the united states’ focused enmity

of Iraq, identiªes terrorism by religious extremists and the proliferation of

60. European Union, “A Secure Europe in a Better World,” p. 4.

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