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Why have states throughout history regularly underestimated dangers to their survival? Why have some states been able to mobilize their material resources effectively to balance against threats, while others have not been able to do so? The phenomenon of \"underbalancing\" is a common but woefully underexamined behavior in international politics. Underbalancing occurs when states fail to recognize dangerous threats, choose not to react to them, or respond in paltry and imprudent ways. It is a response that directly contradicts the core prediction of structural realism's balance-of-power theory--that states motivated to survive as autonomous entities are coherent actors that, when confronted by dangerous threats, act to restore the disrupted balance by creating alliances or increasing their military capabilities, or, in some cases, a combination of both. Consistent with the new wave of neoclassical realist research,Unanswered Threatsoffers a theory of underbalancing based on four domestic-level variables--elite consensus, elite cohesion, social cohesion, and regime/government vulnerability--that channel, mediate, and redirect policy responses to external pressures and incentives. The theory yields five causal schemes for underbalancing behavior, which are tested against the cases of interwar Britain and France, France from 1877 to 1913, and the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) that pitted tiny Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. Randall Schweller concludes that those most likely to underbalance are incoherent, fragmented states whose elites are constrained by political considerations.

Successive hegemonic powers have shaped the foundations of international law. This book examines whether the predominance of the United States is leading to foundational change in the international legal system. A range of leading scholars in international law and international relations consider six foundational areas that could be undergoing change, including international community, sovereign equality, the law governing the use of force, and compliance. The authors demonstrate that the effects of US predominance on the foundations of international law are real, but also intensely complex. This complexity is due, in part, to a multitude of actors exercising influential roles. And it is also due to the continued vitality and remaining functionality of the international legal system itself. This system limits the influence of individual states, while stretching and bending in response to the changing geopolitics of our time.

No detailed description available for \"The Atlantic Realists\".

This book seeks to help shape the debate surrounding power and polarity in the twenty-first century, both by assessing the likelihood of US decline and by analysing what each of the so-called 'rising powers' can do. As the twenty-first century moves out of its first decade, American supremacy continues to generate intense debate about the nature, quality and sustainability of US power. At the same time, significant developments in four rising powers - China, Russia, India and the European Union - have provoked analysts to ask whether multipolarity is a realistic prospect. Multipolarity in the 21st Century assesses the likelihood of a multipolar world developing, either by a marked US decline and or by the ability of these putative 'rivals' to continue to rise to the level necessary to be credibly considered a superpower. Written by a combination of emerging scholars and recognised experts, this volume will provide a timely and authoritative analysis of one of the most controversial and compelling security debates of the twenty-first century. This book will be of much interest to students of Security Studies, Foreign Policy and International Relations in general.

Balance of Power and Norm Hierarchy: Franco-British Diplomacy after the Peace of Utrecht offers a detailed study of French and British diplomacy in the age of 'Walpole and Fleury'. After Louis XIV's decease, European international relations were dominated by the collaboration between James Stanhope and Guillaume Dubois. Their alliance focused on the amendment and enlargement of the peace treaties of Utrecht, Rastatt and Baden. In-depth analysis of vast archival material uncovers the practical legal arguments used between Hampton Court and Versailles. 'Balance of Power' or 'Tranquillity of Europe' were in fact metaphors for the predominance of treaty law even over the most fundamental municipal norms. An implacable logic of norm hierarchy allowed to consolidate peace in Europe.

The most precarious and quite common form of dispute between major powers arises over third nations. When the Stakes Are High focuses primarily on extended deterrence, in which one side attempts to prevent another side from initiating or escalating conflict with a third nation. Vesna Danilovic addresses three central questions in a critical examination of the scholarly literature in strategic studies: When is extended deterrence likely to be effective? What happens if deterrence fails? In what circumstances is war likely to result from a deterrence failure? The result is a new understanding of the dynamics of deterrence and conflict between major powers. For deterrence to work, a potential challenger must perceive the deterrer's threats as capable and credible for retaliation. Shaped by the dilemmas of superpower nuclear deterrence, the strategic literature has been largely influenced by commitment theory. This theory prescribes various \"manipulation of risk\" strategies intended to build a deterrer's reputation for strong resolve regardless of its national interests in the particular issue of dispute. An alternative approach, known as the inherent credibility of deterrent threats, recognizes the importance of \"intrinsic interests\" in the issues at stake. This book demonstrates the validity of this alternative approach, emphasizing the importance of inherent credibility for explaining the history of major power clashes in the twentieth century and also suggests its greater suitability for the post-Cold War context. The author expands upon the inherent credibility approach and takes the position, rarely examined elsewhere, that the salience of a protégé's region for the deterrer's national interests is a principal ingredient of the credibility of major power deterrence. A major power's national interests, which shape the inherent credibility of threats and which are shaped by various regional stakes, set the limits to the relevance of other factors. The author has created a unique, unified approach to the topic by integrating a number of factors previously treated in isolation in different subfields of international studies. When the Stakes Are High, therefore, fits research interests ranging from general international relations theory to the specific fields of international conflict, deterrence, causes of wars, great power behavior, and geopolitics.

The two centuries that chronologically bind the topics in this volume span a period when Europe was in its global ascendancy. This volume explores the various factors related to the projection and limitation of imperial powers in the western world between 1618 and 1850.

Why the future of great power politics is likely to resemble its dismal past Can great powers be confident that their peers have benign intentions? States that trust each other can live at peace; those that mistrust each other are doomed to compete for arms and allies and may even go to war. Sebastian Rosato explains that states routinely lack the kind of information they need to be convinced that their rivals mean them no harm. Even in cases that supposedly involved mutual trust-Germany and Russia in the Bismarck era; Britain and the United States during the great rapprochement; France and Germany, and Japan and the United States in the early interwar period; and the Soviet Union and United States at the end of the Cold War-the protagonists mistrusted each other and struggled for advantage. Rosato argues that the ramifications of his argument for U.S.-China relations are profound: the future of great power politics is likely to resemble its dismal past.