the core ideas of balance of power as I understand it are...
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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
a) states will act independently to maintain equilibrium, because absent a severe enough imbalance that one might achieve hegemony, maintaining equilibrium is optimal for all participants individually
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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
and b) this disincentivizes war, which is presumed to be employed chiefly to fulfill hegemonic ambition, but balancing incentives function like a poison pill
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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
but based on reading both of these assumptions seem completely wrong. rather than an emergent property of states, the few times a "balance" seems to persist...
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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
...are compacts between particular *men* with particular shared aims, and once those men exit the stage, or come to distrust each other, the whole thing falls apart
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Replying to @alicemazzy
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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Replying to @SpeakMouthWords
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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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
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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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
...the result is constant jockeying for position whether through internal improvement or external conflict up to and including war
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Replying to @alicemazzy @SpeakMouthWords
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
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