Balance of power, in international relations, the posture and policy of a nation

or group of nations protecting itself against another nation or group of nations

by matching its power against the power of the other side. States can pursue a
policy of balance of power in two ways: by increasing their own power, as
when engaging in an armaments race or in the competitive acquisition of
territory; or by adding to their own power that of other states, as when
embarking upon a policy of alliances.

The term balance of power came into use to denote the power relationships in
the European state system from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to World War
I. Within the European balance of power, Great Britain played the role of the
“balancer,” or “holder of the balance.” It was not permanently identified with
the policies of any European nation, and it would throw its weight at one time
on one side, at another time on another side, guided largely by one
consideration—the maintenance of the balance itself. Naval supremacy and its
virtual immunity from foreign invasion enabled Great Britain to perform this
function, which made the European balance of power both flexible and
stable.The balance of power from the early 20th century onward underwent
drastic changes that for all practical purposes destroyed the European power
structure as it had existed since the end of the Middle Ages. Prior to the 20th
century, the political world was composed of a number of separate and
independent balance-of-power systems, such as the European, the American,
the Chinese, and the Indian. But World War I and its attendant political
alignments triggered a process that eventually culminated in the integration of
most of the world’s nations into a single balance-of-power system. This
integration began with the World War I alliance of Britain, France, Russia, and
the United States against Germany and Austria-Hungary. The integration
continued in World War II, during which the fascist nations of Germany, Japan,
and Italy were opposed by a global alliance of the Soviet Union, the United
States, Britain, and China. World War II ended with the major weights in the
balance of power having shifted from the traditional players in western and
central Europe to just two non-European ones: the United States and the
Soviet Union. The result was a bipolar balance of power across the northern
half of the globe that pitted the free-market democracies of the West against
the communist one-party states of eastern Europe. More specifically, the
nations of western Europe sided with the United States in the NATO military
alliance, while the Soviet Union’s satellite-allies in central and eastern Europe
became unified under Soviet leadership in the Warsaw Pact.

Because the balance of power was now bipolar and because of the great
disparity of power between the two superpowers and all other nations, the
European countries lost that freedom of movement that previously had made
for a flexible system. Instead of a series of shifting and basically unpredictable
alliances with and against each other, the nations of Europe now clustered
around the two superpowers and tended to transform themselves into two
stable blocs.

There were other decisive differences between the postwar balance of power
and its predecessor. The fear of mutual destruction in a global nuclear
holocaust injected into the foreign policies of the United States and the Soviet
Union a marked element of restraint. A direct military confrontation between
the two superpowers and their allies on European soil was an almost-certain
gateway to nuclear war and was therefore to be avoided at almost any cost. So
instead, direct confrontation was largely replaced by (1) a massive arms race
whose lethal products were never used and (2) political meddling or limited
military interventions by the superpowers in various Third World nations.

In the late 20th century, some Third World nations resisted the advances of
the superpowers and maintained a nonaligned stance in international politics.
The breakaway of China from Soviet influence and its cultivation of a
nonaligned but covertly anti-Soviet stance lent a further complexity to the
bipolar balance of power. The most important shift in the balance of power
began in 1989–90, however, when the Soviet Union lost control over its
eastern European satellites and allowed noncommunist governments to come
to power in those countries. The breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 made the
concept of a European balance of power temporarily irrelevant, since the
government of newly sovereign Russia initially embraced the political and
economic forms favoured by the United States and western Europe. Both
Russia and the United States retained their nuclear arsenals, however, so the
balance of nuclear threat between them remained potentially in force.
Congress of Vienna, assembly in 1814–15 that reorganized Europe after the
Napoleonic Wars. It began in September 1814, five months after Napoleon I’s
first abdication and completed its “Final Act” in June 1815, shortly before the
Waterloo campaign and the final defeat of Napoleon. The settlement was the
most-comprehensive treaty that Europe had ever seen.

Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain, the four powers that were chiefly
instrumental in the overthrow of Napoleon, had concluded a special alliance
among themselves with the Treaty of Chaumont, on March 9, 1814, a month
before Napoleon’s first abdication. The subsequent treaties of peace with
France, signed on May 30 not only by the “four” but also by Sweden and
Portugal and on July 20 by Spain, stipulated that all former belligerents should
send plenipotentiaries to a congress in Vienna. Nevertheless, the “four” still
intended to reserve the real decision making for themselves.

Delegates

Representatives began to arrive in Vienna toward the end of September 1814.

All of Europe sent its most-important statesmen. Klemens, prince von
Metternich, principal minister of Austria, represented his emperor, Francis II.
Tsar Alexander I of Russia directed his own diplomacy. King Frederick William
III of Prussia had Karl, prince von Hardenberg, as his principal minister. Great
Britain was represented by its foreign minister, Viscount Castlereagh. When
Castlereagh had to return to his parliamentary duties, the duke of Wellington
replaced him, and Lord Clancarty was principal representative after the duke’s
departure. The restored Louis XVIII of France sent Charles-Maurice de
Talleyrand. Spain, Portugal, and Sweden had only men of moderate ability to
represent them. Many of the rulers of the minor states of Europe put in an
appearance. With them came a host of courtiers, secretaries, and ladies to
enjoy the magnificent social life of the Austrian court.

Assisting Metternich as host, Friedrich Gentz played a vital role in the

management of protocol and in the secretarial organization of the congress.
The social side of the congress was, in fact, one of the causes of the long and
unexpected delay in producing a result, for Metternich at least sometimes
subordinated business to pleasure.

Procedure

The procedure of the congress was determined by the difficulty and complexity
of the issues to be solved. First there was the problem of the organization of
the congress, for which there was no precedent. The “four” were determined
to keep the management of the main problems entirely in their own hands,
but since they had rather rashly summoned a congress, they had to pay some
attention to it. Thus, the ministers of Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain
assembled early for discussions and finally agreed, on September 22, 1814,
that the “four” should be those to decide the future of all the conquered
territories. They were then to communicate their decisions to France and Spain.
The full congress was to be summoned only when all was ready.

Such was the situation that Talleyrand found when he arrived on September 24.
He refused to accept it and was supported by Spain’s representative, the
marqués de Labrador. Talleyrand denied that either the “four” or the “six”
(including France and Spain) was a legally constituted body and desired that
the congress should be summoned to elect a directing committee. If any other
body had rights in the matter, it was the group of powers—Austria, Great
Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal—that had signed the 1814
Treaty of Paris with France (thus, the “eight”), which ended the Napoleonic
Wars for the first time. The core four were much disturbed, knowing that the
smaller powers would support Talleyrand if they gave him the chance of
appealing to them. They had no intention of giving way, however, and refused
to summon a meeting of all the representatives. The opening of the congress
was postponed until November 1. No solution could be found, however, and
after a meeting of the “eight” on October 30, the opening was again
postponed.
Meanwhile, work proceeded without the sanction of the main body of
plenipotentiaries. The “four” discussed the main territorial problems informally
among themselves. The “eight” assumed the formal direction of the congress;
a committee of German states met to draw up a constitution for Germany, and
a special committee on Switzerland was appointed by the “four.” Talleyrand
was thus excluded from the main work of the congress, but his protests on
behalf of the smaller powers grew fainter as he realized that the “four” were
not in agreement; Castlereagh and Metternich gradually won his confidence
and at last insisted on Bourbon France’s being admitted to the core group. It
was that committee of five that was the real Congress of Vienna. Between
January 7 and February 13, 1815, it settled the frontiers of all territories north
of the Alps and laid the foundations for the settlement of Italy. Meanwhile, the
committee of eight dealt with more-general matters. The congress as a
representative body of all Europe never met.

Decisions Of The Congress

The major points of friction occurred over the disposition of Poland and Saxony,
the conflicting claims of Sweden, Denmark, and Russia, and the adjustment of
the borders of the German states. In general, Russia and Prussia were opposed
by Austria, France, and England, which at one point (January 3, 1815) went so
far as to conclude a secret treaty of defensive alliance. The major final
agreements In return for acquiring Poland, Alexander gave back Galicia to
Austria and gave Thorn and a region around it to Prussia; Kraków was made a
free town. The rest of the Duchy of Warsaw was incorporated as a separate
kingdom under the Russian emperor’s sovereignty. Prussia got two-fifths of
Saxony and was compensated by extensive additions in Westphalia and on the
left bank of the Rhine River. It was Castlereagh who insisted on Prussian
acceptance of the latter territory, with which it had been suggested the king of
Saxony should be compensated. Castlereagh wanted Prussia to guard the
territories of the Rhine region against France and act as a buttress to the new
Kingdom of the Netherlands, which comprised both the former United
Provinces and Belgium. Austria was compensated by Lombardy and Venice and
got back most of Tirol. Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden on the whole did well.
Hanover was also enlarged. The outline of a constitution, a loose confederation,
was drawn up for Germany—a triumph for Metternich. Denmark lost Norway
to Sweden but got Lauenburg, while Swedish Pomerania went to Prussia.
Switzerland was given a new constitution.

In Italy, Piedmont absorbed Genoa; Tuscany and Modena went to an Austrian

archduke; and the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza was given to Marie-Louise,
consort of the deposed Napoleon. The Papal States were restored to the pope,
and Naples went to the Sicilian Bourbons.

Valuable articles were agreed to on the free navigation of international rivers

and diplomatic precedence. Castlereagh’s great efforts for the abolition of the
slave trade were rewarded only by a pious declaration.

The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna comprised all the agreements in one
great instrument. It was signed on June 9, 1815, by the “eight” (except Spain,
which refused as a protest against the Italian settlement). All the other powers
subsequently acceded to it. As a result, the political boundaries laid down by
the Congress of Vienna lasted, except for one or two changes, for more than
40 years. The statesmen had successfully worked out the principle of a balance
of power. However, the idea of nationality had been almost entirely
ignored—necessarily so because it was not yet ready for expression. Territories
had been bartered about without much reference to the wishes of their
inhabitants. Until an even greater settlement took place at Versailles after
World War I, it was customary for historians to condemn the statesmen of
Vienna. It was later realized how difficult their task was, as was the fact that
they secured for Europe a period of peace, which was its cardinal need. The
statesmen failed, however, to give to international relations any organ by
which their work could be adapted to the new forces of the 19th century, and
it was ultimately doomed to destruction.

Concert of Europe, in the post-Napoleonic era, the vague consensus among

the European monarchies favouring preservation of the territorial and political
status quo. The term assumed the responsibility and right of the great powers
to intervene and impose their collective will on states threatened by internal
rebellion. The powers notably suppressed uprisings in Italy (1820) and Spain
(1822) but later condoned Belgium’s rebellion and proclamation of
independence (1830).

Made obsolete in its original form by the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 and by
the subsequent unifications of Italy and Germany, the Concert of Europe
survived for most of the 19th century in the consultations among the great
powers on territorial questions.

Industrial Revolution, in modern history, the process of change from an

agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine
manufacturing. This process began in Britain in the 18th century and from
there spread to other parts of the world. Although used earlier by French
writers, the term Industrial Revolution was first popularized by the English
economic historian Arnold Toynbee (1852–83) to describe Britain’s economic
development from 1760 to 1840. Since Toynbee’s time the term has been
more broadly applied.

A brief treatment of the Industrial Revolution follows. For full treatment, see
Europe, history of: The Industrial Revolution.

The main features involved in the Industrial Revolution were technological,

socioeconomic, and cultural. The technological changes included the following:
(1) the use of new basic materials, chiefly iron and steel, (2) the use of new
energy sources, including both fuels and motive power, such as coal, the steam
engine, electricity, petroleum, and the internal-combustion engine, (3) the
invention of new machines, such as the spinning jenny and the power loom
that permitted increased production with a smaller expenditure of human
energy, (4) a new organization of work known as the factory system, which
entailed increased division of labour and specialization of function, (5)
important developments in transportation and communication, including the
steam locomotive, steamship, automobile, airplane, telegraph, and radio, and
(6) the increasing application of science to industry. These technological
changes made possible a tremendously increased use of natural resources and
the mass production of manufactured goods.
There were also many new developments in nonindustrial spheres, including
the following: (1) agricultural improvements that made possible the provision
of food for a larger nonagricultural population, (2) economic changes that
resulted in a wider distribution of wealth, the decline of land as a source of
wealth in the face of rising industrial production, and increased international
trade, (3) political changes reflecting the shift in economic power, as well as
new state policies corresponding to the needs of an industrialized society, (4)
sweeping social changes, including the growth of cities, the development of
working-class movements, and the emergence of new patterns of authority,
and (5) cultural transformations of a broad order. Workers acquired new and
distinctive skills, and their relation to their tasks shifted; instead of being
craftsmen working with hand tools, they became machine operators, subject
to factory discipline. Finally, there was a psychological change: confidence in
the ability to use resources and to master nature was heightened.

The First Industrial Revolution

In the period 1760 to 1830 the Industrial Revolution was largely confined to
Britain. Aware of their head start, the British forbade the export of machinery,
skilled workers, and manufacturing techniques. The British monopoly could not
last forever, especially since some Britons saw profitable industrial
opportunities abroad, while continental European businessmen sought to lure
British know-how to their countries. Two Englishmen, William and John
Cockerill, brought the Industrial Revolution to Belgium by developing machine
shops at Liège (c. 1807), and Belgium became the first country in continental
Europe to be transformed economically. Like its British progenitor, the Belgian
Industrial Revolution centred in iron, coal, and textiles.

France was more slowly and less thoroughly industrialized than either Britain
or Belgium. While Britain was establishing its industrial leadership, France was
immersed in its Revolution, and the uncertain political situation discouraged
large investments in industrial innovations. By 1848 France had become an
industrial power, but, despite great growth under the Second Empire, it
remained behind Britain.
Other European countries lagged far behind. Their bourgeoisie lacked the
wealth, power, and opportunities of their British, French, and Belgian
counterparts. Political conditions in the other nations also hindered industrial
expansion. Germany, for example, despite vast resources of coal and iron, did
not begin its industrial expansion until after national unity was achieved in
1870. Once begun, Germany’s industrial production grew so rapidly that by the
turn of the century that nation was outproducing Britain in steel and had
become the world leader in the chemical industries. The rise of U.S. industrial
power in the 19th and 20th centuries also far outstripped European efforts.
And Japan too joined the Industrial Revolution with striking success.

The eastern European countries were behind early in the 20th century. It was
not until the five-year plans that the Soviet Union became a major industrial
power, telescoping into a few decades the industrialization that had taken a
century and a half in Britain. The mid-20th century witnessed the spread of the
Industrial Revolution into hitherto nonindustrialized areas such as China and
India.

The Second Industrial Revolution

Despite considerable overlapping with the “old,” there was mounting evidence
for a “new” Industrial Revolution in the late 19th and 20th centuries. In terms
of basic materials, modern industry began to exploit many natural and
synthetic resources not hitherto utilized: lighter metals, new alloys, and
synthetic products such as plastics, as well as new energy sources. Combined
with these were developments in machines, tools, and computers that gave
rise to the automatic factory. Although some segments of industry were
almost completely mechanized in the early to mid-19th century, automatic
operation, as distinct from the assembly line, first achieved major significance
in the second half of the 20th century.

Ownership of the means of production also underwent changes. The

oligarchical ownership of the means of production that characterized the
Industrial Revolution in the early to mid-19th century gave way to a wider
distribution of ownership through purchase of common stocks by individuals
and by institutions such as insurance companies. In the first half of the 20th
century, many countries of Europe socialized basic sectors of their economies.
There was also during that period a change in political theories: instead of the
laissez-faire ideas that dominated the economic and social thought of the
classical Industrial Revolution, governments generally moved into the social
and economic realm to meet the needs of their more complex industrial
societies.

Imperialism, state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and

dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and
economic control of other areas. Because it always involves the use of power,
whether military force or some subtler form, imperialism has often been
considered morally reprehensible, and the term is frequently employed in
international propaganda to denounce and discredit an opponent’s foreign
policy.

Imperialism in ancient times is clear in the history of China and in the history
of western Asia and the Mediterranean—an unending succession of empires.
The tyrannical empire of the Assyrians was replaced (6th–4th century bce) by
that of the Persians, in strong contrast to the Assyrian in its liberal treatment of
subjected peoples, assuring it long duration. It eventually gave way to the
imperialism of Greece. When Greek imperialism reached an apex under
Alexander the Great (356–323 bce), a union of the eastern Mediterranean with
western Asia was achieved. But the cosmopolis, in which all citizens of the
world would live harmoniously together in equality, remained a dream of
Alexander. It was partially realized when the Romans built their empire from
Britain to Egypt. This idea of empire as a unifying force was never again
realized after the fall of Rome. The nations arising from the ashes of the
Roman Empire in Europe, and in Asia on the common basis of Islamic
civilization, pursued their individual imperialist policies. Imperialism became a
divisive force among the peoples of the world.Three periods in the modern era
witnessed the creation of vast empires, primarily colonial. Between the 15th
century and the middle of the 18th, England, France, the Netherlands, Portugal,
and Spain built empires in the Americas, India, and the East Indies. For almost
a century thereafter, relative calm in empire building reigned as the result of a
strong reaction against imperialism. Then the decades between the middle of
the 19th century and World War I were again characterized by intense
imperialistic policies.Russia, Italy, Germany, the United States, and Japan were
added as newcomers among the imperialistic states, and indirect, especially
financial, control became a preferred form of imperialism. For a decade after
World War I the great expectations for a better world inspired by the League of
Nations put the problem of imperialism once more in abeyance. Then Japan
renewed its empire building with an attack in 1931 upon China, and under the
leadership of the totalitarian states, Japan, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the
Soviet Union, a new period of imperialism was inaugurated in the 1930s
and ’40s.

In their modern form, arguments about the causes and value of imperialism
can be classified into four main groups. The first group contains economic
arguments and often turns around the question of whether or not imperialism
pays. Those who argue that it does point to the human and material resources
and the outlets for goods, investment capital, and surplus population provided
by an empire. Their opponents, among them Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and
J.A. Hobson, often admit that imperialism may benefit a small, favoured group
but never the nation as a whole. Marxist theoreticians interpret imperialism as
a late stage of capitalism when the national capitalist economy has become
monopolistic and is forced to conquer outlets for its overproduction and
surplus capital in competition with other capitalist states. This is the view held,
for instance, by Vladimir Lenin and N.I. Bukharin, to whom capitalism and
imperialism are identical. The weakness in that view is that historical evidence
does not support it and that it fails to explain precapitalist imperialism and
communist imperialism.

A second group of arguments relates imperialism to the nature of human

beings and human groups, such as the state. Such different personalities as
Machiavelli, Sir Francis Bacon, Ludwig Gumplowicz, Adolf Hitler, and Benito
Mussolini, reasoning on different grounds, nevertheless arrived at similar
conclusions. Imperialism to them is part of the natural struggle for survival.
Those endowed with superior qualities are destined to rule all others.

The third group of arguments has to do with strategy and security. Nations are
urged, proponents of this viewpoint say, to obtain bases, strategic materials,
buffer states, “natural” frontiers, control of communication lines for reasons of
security, or to prevent other states from obtaining them. Those who deny the
value of imperialism for these purposes point out that security is not achieved.
Expansion of a state’s control over territories and peoples beyond its borders is
likely to lead to friction, hence insecurity, because the safety zones and
spheres of influence of competing nations are bound to overlap sooner or later.
Related to the security argument is the argument that nations are imperialistic
in the search for power and prestige for their own sake.

The fourth group of arguments is based on moral grounds, sometimes with

strong missionary implications. Imperialism is excused as the means of
liberating peoples from tyrannical rule or of bringing them the blessings of a
superior way of life. Imperialism results from a complex of causes in which in
varying degrees economic pressures, human aggressiveness and greed, search
for security, drive for power and prestige, nationalist emotions,
humanitarianism, and many other factors are effective. This mixture of
motivations makes it difficult to eliminate imperialism but also easy for states
considering themselves potential victims to suspect it in policies not intended
to be imperialistic. Some states of the Third World have accused the former
colonial powers and other nations of neocolonialism. Their fear is that the
granting of aid or the supply of skilled personnel for economic and technical
development might be an imperialist guise.

Under international organizations, attempts have been made to satisfy by

peaceful means the legitimate aspirations of nations and to contain their
illegitimate ones. Among the measures for these purposes are collective
security arrangements, the mandate and the trusteeship system for dependent
areas, the stimulation of cultural relations between nations, aid to developing
countries, and the improvement of health and welfare everywhere. See also
colonialism.
The Triple Entente
In 1905 the Germans seized on Russia’s temporary troubles to pressure France
in Morocco. Bülow believed he had much to gain—at best he might force a
breakup of the Anglo-French entente, at worst he might provoke a French
retreat and secure German rights in Morocco. But at the Algeciras Conference
in 1906, called to settle the Morocco dispute, only Austria-Hungary supported
the German position. Far from breaking the Entente Cordiale, the affair
prompted the British to begin secret staff talks with the French military. The
United States, Russia, and even Italy, Germany’s erstwhile partner in the Triple
Alliance, took France’s side. For some years Italian ambitions in the
Mediterranean had been thwarted, and the attempt to conquer Abyssinia in
1896 had failed. The German alliance seemed to offer little, while Rome’s
other foreign objective, the Italian irredenta in the Tirol and Dalmatia, was
aimed at Austria-Hungary. So in 1900 Italy concluded a secret agreement
pledging support for France in Morocco in return for French support of Italy in
Libya. The Russo-Japanese War also strengthened ties between France and
Russia as French loans again rebuilt Russia’s shattered armed forces. Finally,
and most critically, the defeated Russians and worried British were now willing
to put to rest their old rivalry in Central Asia. The Anglo-Russian Convention of
1907 made a neutral buffer of Tibet, recognized Britain’s interest in
Afghanistan, and partitioned Persia into spheres of influence. Foreign Secretary
Sir Edward Grey also hinted at the possibility of British support for Russian
policy in the Balkans, reversing a century-old tradition.

The heyday of European imperialism thus called into existence a second

alliance system, the Triple Entente of France, Britain, and Russia. It was not
originally conceived as a balance to German power, but that was its effect,
especially in light of the escalating naval race. In 1906 the Royal Navy under
the reformer Sir John Fisher launched HMS Dreadnought, a battleship whose
size, armour, speed, and gunnery rendered all existing warships obsolete. The
German government responded in kind, even enlarging the Kiel Canal at great
expense to accommodate the larger ships. What were the British, dependent
on imports by sea for seven-eighths of their raw materials and over half their
foodstuffs, to make of German behaviour? In a famous Foreign Office memo of
January 1907, Senior Clerk Sir Eyre Crowe surmised that Weltpolitik was either
a conscious bid for hegemony or a “vague, confused, and unpractical
statesmanship not realizing its own drift.” As Ambassador Sir Francis Bertie put
it, “The Germans aim to push us into the water and steal our clothes.”

For France the Triple Entente was primarily a continental security apparatus.
For Russia it was a means of reducing points of conflict so that the antiquated
tzarist system could buy time to catch up technologically with the West. For
Britain the ententes, the Japanese alliance, and the “special relationship” with
the United States were diplomatic props for an empire beyond Britain’s
capacity to defend alone. The three powers’ interests by no means
coincided—disputes over Persia alone might have smashed Anglo-Russian
unity if the war had not intervened. But to the Germans the Triple Entente
looked suspiciously like encirclement designed to frustrate their rightful claims
to world power and prestige. German attempts to break the encirclement,
however, would only alarm the entente powers and cause them to draw the
loose strings into a knot. That in turn tempted German leaders, fearful that
time was against them, to cut the Gordian knot with the sword. For after 1907
the focus of diplomacy shifted back to the Balkans, with European cabinets
unaware, until it was too late, that alliances made with the wide world in mind
had dangerously limited their freedom of action in Europe.