What do we mean by a “Balance of power ” in a multipolar system? Why did it fail

Question

What do we mean by a “Balance of power ” in a multipolar system? Why did it fail to contain the French State when they confronted it with the democratic notion of “popular sovereignty?” Why was Napoleonic France a revolutionary power in the European State System? Which power ultimately replaced it as the “problem state” in 19th century Europe? And in 20th century Europe? How can the “security dilemma”created by “balance of power diplomacy” help us to understand the outbreak of World War One? How does the current crisis of the Russian invasion of Eastern Ukraine and annexation of Crimea resemble earlier “security dilemmas” and threaten an escalation of tensions between the NATO/EU member states and Putin's Russia?

Explanation / Answer

In international relations, a great power is a state which excels in “size of population and territory, resource endowment, economic capability, military strength, political stability and competence”. These characteristics, also referred as power capabilities, The distribution of power capabilities in the international system determines the number of the great powers and, consequently, the polarity of the international system. If the great powers are more than two, the system will be multi-polar; if they are two, it will be bipolar, while systems with only one great power are considered unipolar. The multi-polar international system characterized by the pursuit of the balance of power among great powers, in a way that none of them was strong enough to predominate over others, transformed in bipolarity.

the French revolution, dynastic sovereignty – the divine right of monarchs – has given way to justifications of territorial exclusivity based on the idea of the nation-state, the self-determination of ‘peoples’, and popular sovereignty.

The conflict involved the foreign powers of France, Sweden, Denmark, England and the United Provinces and was ended by the Peace of Westphalia, which introduced the concept of state sovereignty and gave rise to the modern international system of states. This system of states was challenged by the expansion of the Napoleonic Empire at the beginning of the 19th century.

The multi-polar world at the beginning of the 20th century was highly economically interconnected and characterized by a large cross-border flows of goods, capital and people, at the point that the ratio of trade to output indicates that “Britain and France are only slightly more open to trade today than they were in 1913, while Japan is less open now than then”, this high interconnection was swept away by World War I.

International relations are defined as part of a domain apart from ‘domestic’ politics. A constant readiness for war is the natural state of affairs where there is no alternative means of overcoming the security dilemma

The rise of Russia, a country which exports large quantities of oil and gas, controls the European provisions of energy and has had high increases in military expenditure in the last decade could represent another potential source of instability for the future world order. The 'Concert of Europe,' a period from after the Napoleonic Wars to the Crimean War, was an example of peaceful multipolarity.

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