"balance of power" as an emergent phenomenon is entirely fake, protracted peace in multipolar world invariably coordinated agreement between individual men with shared goals, change my mind
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and aside for these individual (one might say gentleman's) agreements, a multipolar world is constantly getting into and out of wars
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Right, agreed. Entities (whether individual-led or not being moot imo) act in their own interest, not the interest of the balance. The balance emerges from the entity-to-entity interactions, not in some hivemind simulcast of ideas
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I don't think a "balance" ever actually exists. the idea is that the "balance" is a stable equilibrium that individual actors will endeavor to preserve
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the reality seems to be that because participants inevitably arrive at different assessments of relative power, and participants all want to maximize their position...
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...the result is constant jockeying for position whether through internal improvement or external conflict up to and including war
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the concert of europe and holy alliance were less individual actors asserting their interests against each other than a supra-national attempt for the old orders to preserve their societies against revolution
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and the reason for the (relative) peace in europe proper between 1815 and 1914 was because conflict shifted elsewhere. great game, eastern question, scramble for africa etc
End of conversation
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The hope is that institutions replace men.
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