Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires to the Global Era

How subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races

At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world's most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance'Ć'Äòof'Ć'Äòpower theory—the bedrock of realism in international relations—other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalanc...