《Balancing on Land》.pdf

Balancing on Land and at Sea Balancing on Land Jack S. Levy and William R. Thompson and at Sea Do States Ally against the Leading Global Power? The end of the Cold War and the emergence of the “unipolar moment” have generated consid- erable debate about how to explain the absence of a great-power balanc- ing coalition against the United States. The proposition that near-hegemonic concentrations of power in the system nearly always trigger a counterbalanc- ing coalition of the other great powers has long been regarded as an “iron law” by balance of power theorists, who often invoke the examples of Spain under Philip II, France under Louis XIV and then under Napoleon, and Germany un- der Wilhelm II and then under Adolf Hitler.1 That the United States, which is generally regarded as the “greatest superpower ever,” has not provoked such a balancing coalition is widely regarded as a puzzle for balance of power the- 2 ory. Fareed Zakaria asks, “Why is no one ganging up against the United States?” G. John Ikenberry asks why, despite the unprecedented concentration of U.S. power, “other great powers have not yet responded in a way antici- pated by balance-of-power theory.”3 Jack S. Levy is Board of Governors’ Professor at Rutgers University and former president of both the Inter- national Studies Association and the Peace Science Society (International). William R. Thompson is Donald A. Rogers Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, former president of the International Studies Association, and Managing Editor of International Studies Quarterly. The authors acknowledge valuable