British Balancing Act
British Balancing Act
INTRODUCTION
It is my belief that states do, in fact, balance the international system according to emerging threats to their power. This is greatly exemplified through the ever-fluctuating foreign policies of Britain around the turn of the century, after having maintained a comfortable isolationist policy for so long was forceddue to new rises in power from France, Russia, and Germanyto pursue alignment with other Great Powers to balance system to her own favor.
Through my analysis I will visit the historical evidence that backs my claim that states (specifically Great Britain) seek on maintain their own security by attempting to manipulate the system in a balanced manner to their own favor. In his book, The End of Isolation, George Monger details the empirical evidence to this claim and I draw a great deal of examples from this source. Because his work is so highly factual, it is ideal for understanding Great Britain's transition from a state fully isolated from the rest of the world to one very much entrenched in the alliance system as a means of protecting her own security due to the rise in power of other Great Powers in Europe.
Another highly respected and notarized scholar whose work I will draw my analysis from is John Mearsheimer who wrote The Tragedy of Great Power Politics in which he lays out the theory that Great Powers are always seeking out opportunities to assert their own power at the expense of their rivals to achieve hegemony. Mearsheimer views the security and power of a state as relative to that of other states within a system such that the increase of one state's power and security would come at the decrease of another state's power and security.
Mearsheimer's views focus more on power and security, however I feel that the best argument to explain British foreign policy in the period surrounding 1900 comes from that of Stephen M. Walt in his...
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