Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T22:38:13.734Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Balances of Power and European Great Power War, 1815–1939: A Suggestion and Some Evidence*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

William B. Moul
William B. Moul
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Three contrary theories of great power war are examined. The first is the common balance of power argument that parity preserves peace. The second is Organski's oft-cited alternative, “the power transition.” The third is a conflation of the first and second. Like the first, the inherent inability to measure power precisely is the basis of the conflated balance of power theory. Like the second, the conclusion is that parity encourages war. Unlike either the first or second theory, the third provides an explanation of the incidence and extent of warfare between great powers. The basic proposition tested is that nonseparated great powers fight as they approach parity in power capabilities. The evidence is from the relations between the European great powers during 1815–1939.

Résumé

On examine ici trois théories contradictoires sur la guerre entre les grandes puissances: celle de l'équilibre des forces, qui assurerait la paix; l'alternative, exprimée par A. F. K. Organski, qui prétend le contraire; enfin, une synthèse des deux précédentes. Cette troisième théorie repose (comme la première) sur l'impossibilité de mesurer avec précision les forces en présence et aboutit (comme la seconde) à la conclusion que l'approche de l'équilibre encourage la guerre. Contrairement aux deux autres la troisième théorie explique l'incidence et l'étendue des guerres entre les grandes puissances. L'Europe, de 1815 à 1939 en fournit la preuve.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , September 1985 , pp. 481 - 528
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 von Clausewitz, Carl. On War. ed. and trans, by Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976). 371Google Scholar. The comment is in a letter from Marx to Engels, October 31. 1857, cited in Paret, Peter, “Clausewitz: A Bibliographical Survey,” World Politics 17 (1965). 278CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Gallie, W. B.. Philosophers of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz. Marx. Engels and Tolstoy (London: Cambridge University Press. 1978). 63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Blainey, Geoffrey. The Causes of War (1973; Melbourne: Sun Books. 1977). 109Google Scholar. From the translation by Graham, J. J. (1874)Google Scholar.

4 During 1815–1939, the European great powers were the United Kingdom and France for the duration; Germany out of Prussia by war, removed from the ranks by defeat in 1918, and restored to great power status in 1925; Russia, transformed into the USSR, defeated by Germany in the First World War, and recognized once more as a great power in 1922; Austria, later Austria-Hungary until dismemberment in 1918; and Italy after unification in 1860.

5 The Crimean War, 1854–1856 (United Kingdom, France versus Russia); War of Italian Unification, 1859 (France versus Austria); the Seven Weeks War, 1866 (Prussia, Italy versus Austria); the Franco-Prussian War, 1870; the First World War, 1914–1918 (United Kingdom, France, Russia, Italy versus Germany, Austria-Hungary); the Second World War, 1939–1945 (United Kingdom, France versus Germany, Italy).

6 World Politics (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 376Google ScholarPubMed.

7 Organski, A. F. K. and Kugler, Jacek, The War Ledger (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980). 49–53, see esp. 51Google Scholar.

8 Singer, J. D., Bremer, Stuart and Stuckey, John, “Capability Distribution. Uncertainty, and Major Power War, 1820-1965,”Google Scholar in Russett, Bruce M. (ed.). Peace. War, and Numbers (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1972). 19–48Google Scholar.

9 Wright, Quincy, A Study of War (2nd ed.; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), 755Google Scholar.

10 Wright, Quincy, The Causes of War and the Conditions of Peace (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1935), 57–58Google Scholar.

11 Some studies which find against the common balance of power proposition are studies of dyads or pairs of states wrenched from the fabric of interstate relations. For example, see Garnham, David, “Power Parity and Lethal International Violence, 1969–1973,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 20 (1976), 379–94;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWeede, Erich, “Overwhelming Preponderance as a Pacifying Condition among Contiguous Asian Dyads.”Google Scholaribid., 395–411; Garnham, David, “Dyadic International War, 1816–1965: The Role of Power Parity and Geographic Proximity,” Western Political Quarterly 29 (1976), 231–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the other hand, at least one study of pairs of states reports contrary results: Ferris, Wayne, The Power Capabilities of Nation-States (Lexington: D. C. Heath, 1973), 116Google Scholar.

12 Wright, , A Study of War, 1390Google Scholar.

13 Caplow, Theodore, Two Against One: Coalitions- in Triads (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1968), 152Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.. 153.

15 Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (4th ed.: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 202Google Scholar.

16 Ibid., 161. 204.

17 Caplow, , Two Against One, 7Google Scholar.

18 Gamson, William, “A Theory of Coalition Formation,” American Sociological Review 26 (1961), 373–82;CrossRefGoogle ScholarRiker, William H., The Theory of Political Coalitions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962);Google Scholar and Zinnes, Dina A., “Coalition Theories and the Balance of Power,” in Sven KellyGroennings, E. W. Groennings, E. W., and Leiserson, Michael (eds.). The Study of Coalition Behavior: Theoretical Perspectives and Cases from Four Continents (New York: Holt. Rinehart, and Winston, 1970), 351–68Google Scholar.

19 Cobden, Richard, Political Writings (New York: Appleton. 1867)Google Scholar, vol. I, 258, as cited in Organski, , World Politics, 299Google Scholar.

20 Organski, , World Politics, 294Google Scholar.

21 The definition is from Wight, Martin, Power Politics (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1946), 19Google Scholar.

22 According to Organski, the first mistake in the balance of power theory is the “erroneous assumption” “that nations are fundamentally static units whose power is not changed from within” However, this assumption is not a part of the balance of power theory, at least not a part of the theories of Morgenthau and A. J. P. Taylor from which Organski draws to describe it. Note, for example, that Taylor prefaces his The Struggle for Mastery in Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1954)Google Scholar with a quantitative description of industrial, demographic, and military power capabilities. Also note Morgenthau's view on the importance of industrialization to national power which is quoted below.

23 Organski, , World Politics, 366Google Scholar.

24 As found in Elman Service's essay on “The Law of Evolutionary Potential,” in Sahlins, Marshall D. and Elman, Service (eds.), Evolution and Culture (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Organski, , World Politics, 354Google Scholar.

26 Ibid., 370.

27 “Rules as to how ... relations ought to be carried on grow to be accepted by all the parties.” Sometimes the great power in second place is not dissatisfied. “The amount of friendship between the dominant nation and the challenger” influences the likelihood of war. Friendship or animosity is a function of satisfaction with the dominant international order. See Organski, . World Politics, 374–75, see esp. 354Google Scholar.

28 France, from which Prussia took territory and enormous reparations, would have had more reason to be dissatisfied than Austria which Prussia left intact and did not force to pay enormous reparations.

29 Morgenthau, , Politics Among Nations. 161Google Scholar.

30 Ibid., 108, 207.

31 Ibid., 198.

32 The characterization of Georg Simmel is Lewis Coser's and is from his “The Dysfunctions of Military Secrecy,” in Coser, Lewis A. (ed.), Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (New York: The Free Press, 1967), 247Google Scholar. The quotation is cited in Coser's The Functions of Social Conflict (New York: The Free Press, 1956), 133Google ScholarPubMed. Blainey also follows Simmel through Coser's explications; see the chapter “The Abacus of Power” in The Causes of War.

33 The phrase is Blainey's.

34 See the chapter by Siverson, Randolph M. and King, Joel in Singer, J. David and Wallace, Michael D. (eds.), To Augur Well: Early Warning Indicators in World Politics (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1979);Google Scholar and their “Attributes of National Alliance Membership and War Participation, 1815–1965,” American Journal of Political Science 24 (1980), 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Singer, J. David and Small, Melvin, “Formal Alliances. 1815–1939: A Quantitative Description.” Journal of Peace Research 3 (1966). 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 The Sociology ofCeorg Simmel. ed. and trans, by Kurt H. Wolff (New York: The Free Press, 1950), 165–66Google ScholarPubMed.

37 Schroeder, Paul W., making a very different argument, calls attention to alliances as restraints between rival partners—dubbed, unhappily, pacta de contrahendoGoogle Scholar. One reason which he credits with misleading students of alliances to take alliances simply as a mean of power aggregation is a pervasive balance-6f-power thinking. “If all international relations rest on a balance of power, alliances naturally operate as power instruments in the balance” (“Alliances, 1815–1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,” in Knorr, Klaus [ed.], Historical Dimensions of National Security Problems [Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1976], 227–29)Google Scholar. For an argument and some evidence very different from Schroeder's and much more in keeping with the one made here, see Moul, William B., “European Great Power Pacta de Contrahendo and Interstate Imperial War, 1815–1939: Suggestions of Pattern,” this JOURNAL 16 (1983), 81–102Google Scholar.

38 Margaret Sprout, Harold, “An Ecological Paradigm for the Study of International Politics,” Research Monograph No. 30, Center of International Studies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 5Google Scholar.

39 Wright, . A Study of War. Appendix 29 and 952–56Google Scholar.

40 Boulding, Kenneth. Conflict and Defense: A General Theory (New York: Harper & Row. 1962). 78–79Google Scholar.

41 Morgenthau, , Politics Among Nations, 113. Pace OrganskiGoogle Scholar.

42 For the period 1815 to 1821 the index components are iron production and military personnel. The military expenditures series is added at 1822. In I860 energy consumption is included, and steel production is added at 1880. My thanks to J. David Singer and his co-workers at the Correlates of War Project for much of these data. For estimates of iron and steel production, see Mitchell, B. R., European Historical Statistics (New York: Columbia University Press. 1976):Google Scholar and Luterbacher, Urs, Dimensions historic/lies de modeles dynamiqties de con/lit: Application anx processns de course aux annenwnts, 1900–1965 (Leiden: A. W. Sijthoff, 1974)Google Scholar. Appendix, for estimates of military expenditures in the twentieth century. The results reported here do not depend upon which estimates of these quantities are used.

43 The common argument that internal violence makes external violent adventures more likely has little merit logically or empirically. Oftentimes that argument is bolstered by a reference to Coser's explication of Simmel's ideas on conflict. Coser does write that “internal cohesion is likely to be increased in the group which engages in outside conflict.” However, he continues with a qualification: “the degree of group consensus prior to the outbreak of the conflict seems to be the most important factor affecting cohesion”-society must be “a going concern” (The Functions of Social Conflict, 92–93)Google Scholar. Undermined by national fissures, nineteenth-century Europe's multi-ethnic empires were less and less “going concerns.”

44 Bagehot, Walter, Physics and Politics (London: Henry S. King & Co., 1872), 51;Google Scholar noticed in Service, Elman R., Origins of the State (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 270Google Scholar.

45 In The War Ledger, Organski and Kugler state that because “the effectiveness of the political systems [in European areas and Japan] kept pace roughly with socio-economic changes, it was possible to infer political development from the scores of key socio-economic variables” (70). Therefore, they found no need to deflate the index of power capabilities in their analysis of great power war. When analyzing the wars of nongreat powers, they did construct a direct measure of political capacity.

46 de Mesquita, Bruce Bueno, The War Trap (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 104–09Google Scholar.

47 Karl Haushofer's catch-phrase is cited in Gray, Colin S.. “The Most Dangerous Decade,” Orbis 25 (1981), 14Google Scholar.

48 Singer and Small, “Formal Alliances, 1815–1939: A Quantitative Description,” 5; Small, and Singer, , “Formal Alliances, 1816–1965: An Extension of the Basic Data,” Journal of Peace Research 6 (1969);CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Holsti, Ole R., Hopmann, P. Terrence and Sullivan, John D., Unity and Disintegration in International Alliances: Comparative Studies (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1973)Google Scholar, Appendix A, for a list of formal alliances included. I also make some use of Robert Rood, “Agreement in the International System: A Comparison of Some Theoretical Aspects of Alliance Structures in a Balance of Power with the European State System of 1814–1914” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Syracuse University, 1973), Appendix 2. This is a listing of formal alliances, informal alliances, and the targets of each alliance.

49 Kann, Robert A., “Alliances Versus Ententes,” World Politics 28 (1976), 612CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 See Moul, , “European Great Power Pacta de Contrahendo and Imperial Interstate War,” 81–102Google Scholar.

51 A plot of the untransformed per cent shares would mislead because the significance of an absolute difference in percentage shares varies with the absolute values compared. For example, a 10 per cent difference between states with 10 per cent and 20 per cent respectively is obviously of far more significance than a 10 per cent difference between states with 45 per cent and 55 per cent.

52 Gullick, E. V., Europe's Classical Balance of Power (New York: Norton, 1967), 304Google Scholar. In 1830, Prussia resisted a coalition with Russia, and without such an alliance Russian troops were not able to reach France. For a discussion of the 1830 crisis prompted by revolution in France, see Lobanov-Rostovsky, A., Russia and Europe, 1825–1878 (Ann Arbor: George Wahr, 1954), 86–115Google Scholar.

53 Hughes, Thomas Lowe, The Fate of Fads in a World of Men (New York: Headline Series, 1976), 48Google Scholar.

54 Hallberg, Charles W., Franz Joseph and Napoleon III. 1852–1864 (New York: Bookman. 1955), 192Google Scholar.

55 Friedjung, Heinrich, The Snuggle for Supremacy in Germany, 1859–1866 (1897: New York: Russell and Russell. 1966), 13Google Scholar.

56 The Sardinian contribution to the power capabilities ratio is unknown. If Austrian commanders, instead of falling back, had pressed on after precipitating the war and before French forces could arrive, the political arithmetic would be better than it is.

57 Jennings, Lawrence C., Fiance and Europe in 1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), 190–229, see esp. 228Google Scholar.

58 The distances used are the distances to the Crimean Peninsula from Portsmouth and Marseilles. Given that the value of the transportation costs in days which is used here is arbitrary, the 1.22 value is also arbitrary, but reasonable. For every serious qualification to the estimate of the numerator, there is a comparable qualification to the denominator. On the one hand, for example, the calculations ignore the very high transportation costs within the Russian Empire. On the other, the naval might which the United Kingdom transported to the Crimea was better suited to fighting another navy or enforcing a blockade, but there was no Russian navy to fight and no effective blockade to be put, there or in the Baltic. See Bartlett, C. J.. Great Britain and Sea Power. 1815–1858 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 331–37:Google ScholarCurtiss, John Shelton. The Russian Army Under Nicholas I. 1825–1855 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1965), 314–66Google Scholar.

59 Text in Hurst, Michael (ed.), Key Treaties for the Great Powers. 1814–1914 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1972)Google Scholar, vol. 1 (1814–1870). 183. See also, Crawley, C. W., The Question of Greek Independence: A Study of British Policy in the Near East, 1821–1833 (1930; New York: Howard Fertig, 1973), 63–78Google Scholar.

60 For an analysis of alliances of restraint between rivals and all of the nineteenth-century Russo-Turkish wars, see Moul, , “European Great Power Pacta de Contrahendo and Imperial Interstate War,” 81–102Google Scholar.

61 Bartlett, , Great Britain and Sea Power. 1815–1853, 89Google Scholar.

62 Ibid., 135–40.

63 For an analysis of Ottoman politics and the Porte's use of great powers, see Saab, Ann Pottinger, The Origins of the Crimean Alliance (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977)Google Scholar.

64 See Smoke, Richard, War: Controlling Escalation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), chap. 7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Morely, John, cited in Marriott, J. A. R., The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European Diplomacy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940), IGoogle Scholar.

66 Namier, Louis B., “From Vienna to Versailles,” in his Conflict: Studies in Contemporary HistoryGoogle Scholar (1934; Freeport, N. Y.: Books for Libraries, 1969)Google Scholar, 14. See also, Wight, Martin, Power Politics, ed. by Hedley Bull and Carsten Holbraad (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979), 157–58Google Scholar.

67 Mosse, W. E., The European Powers and the German Question, 1848–1871 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1958), 32–42Google Scholar.

68 The ratios (Prussia: Austria) of power capabilities calculated without energy consumption during 1860–1865 are: 1860, 6.4:9.8; 1861, 7.5:7.9: 1862, 8.0:9.3; 1863, 8.2:9.6: 1864, 7.8:9.0: 1865, 8.9:9.4.

69 Clark, Chester Wells, Franz Joseph and Bismarck: The Diplomacy of Austria Before the War of 1866 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1934), 438, 439Google Scholar.

70 Kautilya's advice on political geometry to princes in ancient India is described in Zimmer, Heinrich, Philosophers of India, ed. by Joseph Campbell (New York: Pantheon Books, Bollinger Series 26, 1951), 113–18Google Scholar. Zimmer also applies Kautilya's political geometry to the twentieth century.

71 The map is missing from the only detailed quantitative study of the decade under discussion. Healy, B. and Stein, A., in their “The Balance of Power in International History: Theory and Reality” (Journal of Conflict Resolution 17 [1973], 33–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar), analyze “982 international events involving 23 nations” from 1870 to 1881. One of the things which they examined was the last of the six rules of Morton Kaplan's balance of power system: to wit, that essential actors defeated in war be permitted to remain in the system of great powers and, if not, another state be brought from the inessential to the essential category of actors (see Kaplan, Morton, System and Process in International Politics [New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1957], 22–36)Google Scholar. France, after defeat, initiated less than 10 per cent of the events tabulated. Healy and Stein conclude that “the international system experienced de facto decrease in the number of essential actors. There appeared to be no desire to raise French status nor to offer her position to a more deserving nation. The remaining actors seemed oblivious to any anti-balancing effects incurred by the demise of French major power diplomacy” (44). The international politics of one side of the Franco-Prussian War differed from the international politics on the other, but France, minus Alsace-Lorraine, remained, and remained a great power. Poland, to choose the best example of the elimination of an “essential actor,” was partitioned and the Polish state ceased to exist. Poland's demise was literally that. The hyperbolic “demise of French major power diplomacy” was the result of the “nondemise” of France as an “essential actor.” Prussia was “a more deserving” state, deserving because of military force, and took France's position in the first rank. Once there, Germany was anything but oblivious to any “anti-balancing effects” of a vengeful great power on her borders. To borrow from one who borrows from Schopenhauer: events data “are the second hands of history... they rarely give the right time” (cited in Katzenstein, Peter J., Disjointed Partners: Austria and Germany Since 1815 [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976], 54)Google Scholar.

72 See the text of the alliance in 1877 and Rupp, George H., A Wavering Friendship: Russia and Austria, 1876–1878 (Philadelphia: Porcupine Press. 1976)Google Scholar.

73 Langer, William L., European Alliances and Alignments, 1871–1890 (2nd ed.; New York: Vintage, n.d.), 352–61, 365–407Google Scholar.

74 Cited in Hillgruber, Andreas, Germany and the Two World Wars (1967; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 20Google Scholar.

75 Also, Clive Treblecock, “War and the Failure of Industrial Mobilization: 1899 and 1914,” in Winter, J. M. (ed.). War and Economic Development: Essays in Honour of David Joslin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

76 Turner, L. C. F., “The Significance of the Schlieffen Plan,” in Kennedy, Paul M. (ed.), The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880–1914 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1979), 217Google Scholar.

77 Williamson, S. R., The Politics of Grand Strategy: Britain and France Prepare for War, 1904–1914 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1969), 299Google Scholar.

78 Kann, Robert A., “Alliances Versus Ententes,” World Politics 28 (1976), 612CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79 Taylor, , The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 438Google Scholar.

80 Arguments and evidence against Organski's position that industrialization made for competing international orders can be found in many places. Basic discussions and evidence on the different political consequences of industrial development among the European great powers are found in Gerschenkron, Alexander, Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1966), 1–51 and 353–64;Google Scholar and in the tables of Woodruff's, WilliamThe Impact of Western Man: A Study of Europe's Role in the World Economy. 1750–1960 (London: Macmillan, 1966), 299–334Google Scholar.

81 Sabrosky, Alan Ned, “From Bosnia to Sarajevo: A Comparative Discussion of Interstate Crises,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 19 (1975), 57–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Koch, H. W., “The Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations: Missed Opportunity or Myth?” History 54 (1969), 392CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 Texts of the French-Italian alliance in Pribram, Alfred F.. The Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary, 1879–1914 (1920; New York: Howard Fertig. 1967), vol. 2. Appendix CGoogle Scholar.

84 Schroeder, Paul W., “World War I as Galloping Gertie: A Reply to Joachim Remak,” Journal of Modem History 44 (1972), 323CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

85 Organskiand, and Kugler, , The War Ledger, chap. 3.Google Scholar See also, Hugh Wheeler, “Post War Industrial Growth,” chap. 9 in Singer, J. David (ed.), The Correlates of War: II—Testing Some Realpolitik Models (New York: The Free Press, 1979)Google Scholar; and his “The Effects of War on Industrial Growth, 1816–1970” (unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Michigan, 1975), 27–32.

86 Hillmanm, H. C.“Comparative Strength of the Great Powers,” in The World in March 1939, vol. 1, Survey of International Affairs, 1939–1946.Google Scholar ed. by Toynbee, Arnold J. and Ashton-Gwatkin, Frank T. (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), 366–507Google Scholar.

87 Portions of the text of the Franco-Italian alliance are in William Askew, “The Secret Agreement between France and Italy on Ethiopia, January 1935,” Journal of Modern History 25 (1953), 47–48;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMedWatt, D. C., “The Secret Laval-Mussolini Agreement of 1935 on Ethiopia,” The Middle East Journal 15 (1961), 69–78Google Scholar. The military co-operation between the partners is noted in Robertson, Esmonde M., Mussolini as Empire-Builder: Europe and Africa. 1932–1936 (London: Macmillan, 1977), 149–50, 164CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

88 The alliance referred to aggression against the territory of France or Russia, not to remilitarization of the Rhineland. Separated from Germany, the USSR could not move to assist France should Germany attack.

89 For accounts of these wars, see Hatatkuhiko, “The Japanese-Soviet Confrontation, 1935–1939,” in Morely, James W. (ed.), Deterrent Diplomacy: Japan, Germany, and the USSR, 1935–1940 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 129–78;Google Scholar the introduction to that essay by Coox;, Alvin D. Coox's book The Anatomy of a Small War: The Soviet-Japanese Struggle for Changkufeng/Khasan, 1938 (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977);Google Scholar and Tinch, Clarke W., “Quasi-War Between Japan and the U.S.S.R., 1937–1939,” World Politics 3 (1951), 174–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 The best estimates are in Hillmann, “Comparative Strength of the Great Powers.” See also the “Instructions to the British Military Mission to Moscow, August 1939, . Staff Conversations With Russia,” Woodward, E. L. and Butler, R., with Orde, A. (eds), Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939 (London: HMSO, 1953)Google Scholar, Third Series, Vol. 6, 762–789, for detailed evaluations of military forces.

91 This is not to deny the important military, economic and political co-operation between Germany and the USSR against third parties in general. See Weinberg, G. L., Germany and the Soviet Union, 1939–1941 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1954)Google Scholar for the best estimates of the importance of the material exchanges.

92 Toynbee, Arnold (ed.). Documents on International Affairs, 1939–1946, Vol. 1: March-September 1939 (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 408Google Scholar.

93 Newman, Simon, March 1939: The British Guarantee to Poland: A Study in the Continuity of British Foreign Policy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 219Google Scholar.

94 Morgenthau, Hans J., “International Relations: Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches,” in Palmer, Norman (ed.), A Design for International Relations Research: Scope, Theory, Methods, and Relevance (Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1970), 71Google Scholar. Put another way, an attraction of the conflated balance of power theory is that it builds upon the quantitative/qualitative distinction which, more often than not, keeps students of international politics apart.

95 Organski, and Kugler, , The War Ledger, 51, Tables 1. 5–1.7.Google Scholar Organski and Kugler cite two recent studies which they claim support the “generality of those findings even though they utilize different measures and different samples” (249). The two are: David Garnham, “Power Parity and Lethal International Violence, 1969–1973,” and Erich Weede, “Overwhelming Preponderance as a Pacifying Condition among Contiguous Dyads, Asian, 1950–1969,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 20 (1976). 379–94, 395–412Google Scholar. The titles indicate some of the differences in measurement and sample and it is those differences which provide reasons to conclude that the findings do not support the conclusions in The War Ledger. The point Organski and Kugler labour in their discussion is that there is no general relationship. How can evidence that there is a general relationship—whatever the quality of the evidence—support their conclusion that none exists? It cannot.

96 Organski and Kugler examine “serious” wars and their notion of “serious” war excludes the Crimean War, the Seven Weeks War and the War of Italian Unification.

97 Cited in Nish, Ian H., The Anglo-Japanese Alliance: The Diplomacy of Two Island Empires, 1894–1907 (London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1966), 261–62Google Scholar. Singer, and Small, classify this alliance as a defence alliance and Organski and Kugler follow them (The War Ledger, 249, footnote 33)Google Scholar.

98 In Organski's discussion of the balance of power (World Politics, chap. 12), alli ances are described as the means of altering relative power position, and the “balancer”—the third party—is described as “crucial” to the theory. Organski and Kugler do use alliance data to construct a measure of threat-perception. The three types of alliance commitments and the absence of an alliance commitment are ordered on a four-point scale and changes in the direct and indirect alliance bonds are calculated (following de Mesquita's, Bruce Bueno “Measuring Systemic Polarity,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 19 [1975], 187–216)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The annual scores are averaged over 20 years in order to correspond to the observations on power capabilities. The end result is a scale thought to measure hostility-friendliness. One historical example of the merits of the procedure is presented: “Forexample, the relationship between France and the United Kingdom moved in the period between 1885 and World War I from a high (positive) position to a nonaligned position, but the movement was not sufficient to carry the relationship into the negative portion of the scale. In an absolute sense the countries remained friends, but they were less firmly committed than they had been earlier” (42). The scale values appear to be wrong side up. France was without an alliance in 1885. Its alliance with Russia in 1891 was directed against the United Kingdom outside of Europe. The United Kingdom was without an alliance in 1885 and its alliance in 1887 served to isolate France. The arms race between the two and the clash at Fashoda do not suggest friendship. Finally, the Anglo-French entente evolved into a mutual defence arrangement, not “a nonaligned position.” 99 Singer, Bremer and Stuckey. “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty,” 25.

99 Singer, , Bremer, and Stuckey, . “Capability Distribution, Uncertainty,” 25Google Scholar.

100 Singer and Small document this “rather critical” inverse relationship in an early Correlates of War project article (“Alliance Aggregation and the Onset of War, 1815–1945,” in Singer, J. D. [ed.], Quantitative International Politics [New York: The Free Press, 1968])Google Scholar, Near the end of that study the fact that large wars are rarer than smaller ones is forgotten.

101 The merits of the index are described in Ray, James L. and Singer, J. David, “Measuring the Concentration of Power in the International System,” Sociological Methods & Research 1 (1973), 403–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 But not enough to make the sign negative as Singer, Bremer and Stuckey report. When calculated from the data presented in the article, the correlation reported as -0.23 is infact 0.20—positive, not negative, for the twentieth-century period. Fora detailed discussion, see William B. Moul, “Preponderance, Parity and Great Power War, 1815–1965: Dissolving Some Puzzling Findings” (unpublished manuscript, University of Waterloo, 1983).