Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Basic elements of a model and definitions of stability
- 3 System stability and the balance of power
- 4 Resource stability and the balance of power
- 5 Preventive war
- 6 Geography, balancers, and central powers
- 7 Great-power alliance formation, 1871–1914
- 8 European conflict resolution, 1875–1914
- 9 Summary and conclusions
- References and selected bibliography on European great-power relations, 1871–1914
- Index
6 - Geography, balancers, and central powers
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Basic elements of a model and definitions of stability
- 3 System stability and the balance of power
- 4 Resource stability and the balance of power
- 5 Preventive war
- 6 Geography, balancers, and central powers
- 7 Great-power alliance formation, 1871–1914
- 8 European conflict resolution, 1875–1914
- 9 Summary and conclusions
- References and selected bibliography on European great-power relations, 1871–1914
- Index
Summary
The geographic location of a state in the world is of basic importance in defining its problems of security. It conditions and influences all other factors… [and] regional location defines potential enemies and allies and perhaps even the limits of a state's role as a participant in a system of collective security.
Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of the Peace (1944, pp. 22–)If a Soviet strategic planner could be granted one wish, it should be to move his country somewhere else.
Stephen M. Walt, The Origins of Alliances (1987, p. 277)A fundamental difficulty with formulating a fully comprehensive theory of stability in anarchic international systems lies in conceptualizing a country's resources so that we adequately summarize the strategic imperatives of a decision maker seeking to ensure a country or a regime's sovereignty. In his early work on coalitions, the size principle, and the application of cooperative game theory to a formulation of the concept of balance of power, for example, Riker (1962) assumes that such systems are constant- sum games in which winning coalitions are those that control a majority of resources.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Balance of PowerStability in International Systems, pp. 187 - 214Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989