T Amuicon ol Qusd v0 4 N3 Jun 1992, 354

AHR Forum
A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power
and the Concert

ROBERT JERVIS

POLITICAL SCIENTISTS sometimes treat historical scholarship the way Sergeant

Friday treated witnesses: “just the facts, ma'am.” This atticude is never less
appropriate than when confronting the writings of Paul Schroeder.! Here we find
arguments about important issues and theories of general political processes.
Some of Schroeder’s analysis is consistent with ideas developed by students of
international politics; other parts represent major challenges. At a time when
political scientists bave shown renewed interest in the Concert of Eurape both for
its intrinsic significance and for its possible relevance in the post~Cold War era, it
is particularly valuable to explore the differences between the Concert and the
balance of power as seen by scholars in both disciplines.?
Some scholars may object that Schroeder’s analysis is 00 sweeping, that it sees
balance of power as one pattern when it should be seen as much more varied, that
it draws excessively stark contrasts between balance and a managed system.
Arguments on these questions can be fruitful but not defiuitive. Along with and
usually inseparable from a sense of how ordered history is, scholars differ in their
aesthetic senses of the attractiveness of parsimony and richness, just as some
historians are lumpers and others are splitters. Some scholars strive for the kind
of understanding that invalves the fullest possible piceure. In this light, few events
closcly resemble each other, and no single cause dominates any particular case.
Others try to construct accounts that are much more parsimonious, in the sense
of seeing a relatively large number of events—including ones that superficially
appear quite different—as sharing crucial characteristics, of believing that one or
two causes are primary in each case, and of suspecting that the same factors are
at work in numerous instances. The price of doing so (too high for many
! My assignment is to discuss "Did the Vienna Settiement Rest on a Balance of Power?” AHR, 97
(June 1992): 683-706, buc this comment applies to Schroeder's other writings as well.
2 See, for example, Robert Jervis, “Sccurity Regimes," Interational Organization, 36 (1982):
360-68; Jervis, “From Balance to Concert,” World Politics, 38 (1985): 58-79; Charles Kupchan and
Clifford Kupchan, "Concerts, Collective Security, and the Futurc of Europe,” International Security, 16
(1991): 114-61; Gregory Gause, “Post-War Gulf Security: Hegemony, Balance, or Concerc
unpublished manuscript. It mightbe noted thacinterest in the Concert has been increased by articles
on it by historians that Lve appeared in World Politics, the leading journal in the field; Richard Elrod,
“The Concert of Europe: A Fresh Look at an International System," Warld Pobitics, 28° (1976):
159-74; Paul Schroeder, “The 19th-Century International System: Changes in the Structure,” World
Politics, 39 (1986): 1-26.

716
 A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert 717

historians) is to blur differences among cases and to leave aut many parts of the
story.
To develop parsimonious explanations, political scientists construct abstract
models and theories. The most obvious question that we try to answer in this area
is how international politics can maintain restraint and stability despite its being
anarchic, that is, lacking a central authority abave the states that has a monopoly
on the legitimate use of force and can make and enforce binding agreements. Not
only is the anarchical international system a permissive cause of wars in the sense
that there is no authority to prevent them but, even in the absence of disputes over
such values as territory, prestige, and religion, conflictis generated by the security
dilemma. In other words, frictions are created because under most conditions the
ways in which states seck to guarantee their own security (armies and alliances, for
example) have the unintended consequence of making others less secure.
From this perspective, what is most striking about international politics is what
has nat accurred—no single state has conquered all the others, wars rarely become
total and usually end in negotiated settlements, losers rarely are divided up and
usually become reintegrated into the sysccm. Even when wars are frequent, there
are important forms of restraint and three types of stability. First, many patterns
recur. One of the pleasures of teaching introductory international politics is
assigning sections of Thucydides and having students coming in saying, “Why, it
is just like the Cold War." Secand, and part of the cause of these similarities, the
anarchical nature of international politics has not been transformed. Thus, while
there is a (disputed) field of study of “political development” dealing with
domestic politics, there is no similar subfield of international politics. Third, there
is stability in the technical sense of negative feedback—the movement of critical
variables in one direction generates forces that limit these changes and returns the
system to something like its previous equilibrium.
The theory of the balance of power comes into play here.+ The growth of a
nation’s power, if it becomes great enough to menace other strong states, will be
at least partially self-defeating; the actempt to dominate the international system
will call up a counter-balancing coalition that will restrain the state. According to
balance of power theory, restraint and stability are not goals of national leaders
but are by-products of the pursuit of narrow self-interest. More precisely, as long
as states seck to survive, can ally with any other state in response to external
incentives, and are willing to resort to wat if need be, then none will be able to
dominate and the other forms of restraint and stability will occur. As I will discuss
below, if these conditions do not hold, the pattern will be different.

3 John Herz, “Idealist Internationalism and the Security Dilemma,” World Politics, 2 (1950):
157-80; Herbere Butterfield, History and Human Relations (London, 1951); Robert Jervis, Perception
and Mispercaption in Interational Politics (Princeton, N.J., 1976), 62-90. Thucydides was perhaps the
first to note this phenomenon. This docs not meaa that greed, aggression, and misunderstandings do
not cause war but only that wars can occur in their absence through the desire for security.
+ As Schroeder notes, there are actually several balance of power theories. The bes treatment is
Inis Claude, Power and International Relations (New York, 1962). Also see Ernst Haas, “The Balance
of Power: Prescription, Concept, or Propaganda,” Warld Politics, 5 (1953): 442-77; and the special
issuc of Review of International Studies, 15, 0. 2 (1989). The version of the theory I am alking about
is drawn from Claude's “automatic” version, best elaborated in Kenneth Walcz, Theory of Insernational
Politics (Reading, Mass., 1979). Also see Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, N.Y., 1987).

AMERICAN HIsTORICAL REVIEW June 1992

 718 Robert Jervis
In this view, many of the obvious sources of moderation need not be present—
there is little need for international law, a sense of common community, or shared
concepts of rights and justice.s One actraction of the theory—which may strike
some as perverse—is that this proposition contradicts common sense. Also
contrary to common sense is the argument that restraint and stability can resule
even chough the actors’ behavior is not moderate; indeed, despite claims to the
contrary, none of the states need seek balance.* The theory is alsa attractive
because it explains, with a few simple assumptions, a great deal of behavior that
has taken place over tens of centuries under widely differing circumstances. The
operation of the.balance thus shows the ability of the anarchical international
system to override variations in statesmen's personalities, transnational technolo-
gies and climaces of opinion, and the domestic characteristics of states.
While balance of power theory cuts against many of our intuitions, it is built on
fairly straightforward logic. Stability and restraint arise through the process of
conflict in a way similar to the operation of Adam Smith’s invisible band. The
desire for survival and autonomy leads states to join together temporarily in order
to stop a patential hegemon even if they have severe canflicts with each ather and
even if many would like to be hegemons themselves. The ather restraints and
puzzles mentioned earlier—the fact that wars are usnally nat total and that Josers
are not divided up—also follow from the dictates of self-interest within the
constraints imposed by the anarchical system. Since any state can ally with any
other, states do not have permanent friends and enemies. To fight a total war or
divide up the loser is then dangerous on two counts. First, the state may need the
current adversary as an ally in the future. Second, while the state would gain
territory and wealth from dividing up the loser, others might gain more than it
would, thus putting the state at a disadvantage in subsequent conflicts. The same
logic explains why small or weak states rarely get divided or swallowed. No one
wants anyone else in the system to get too strong; a state that conquers one of its
small neighbors is likely to be in a better position to menace others; the invitation
to join with others in dividing a weak state will be scrutinized with an eye to
relative rather than absolute gains.
The result, then, is a relatively moderate outcome despite—or, rather, because
of—the fear and greed of the individual scates. Restraint is internalized only to the
extent that states may anticipate that to behave too forcefully will be to lead others
to mobilize against them. (This exception leaves room for much cooperative
behavior and so makes it difficult to disconfirm the theory.”) The general picture
is of a world in which states constantly take advantage of any opportunity to make
competitive gains at athers’ expense, consult with others only when they believe
that the results will be in their immediate interest, and freely employ tactics of
surprise and duplicity. There is little sense of a community of nations, of shared
responsibility, or of the desire and need to preserve the system. I think most
political scientists would join me in agreeing with Schroeder that this picture does
% These are stressed in Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society (New York, 1977).
¢ David Hume, “Of the Balance of Power,” in Charles Hendel, od., David Hume's Political Essays
(Indianapolis, Ind.. 1958}, 142-44; Edward Gulick, Eurepe's Classical Balance of Poer (New York,
1967); Hans Motgenthau, Politics among Natisns, 6th edn. (New York, 1985), 214-15,
7 See Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest,” 699.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW . "Junz 1992

 A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert 719

not describe the Congress of Vienna and the international politics prevailing for
some period thereafter. Edward Gulick reconciles behavior at Vienna with the
balance of power by misrepresenting the latter. Behavior was moderate, but that
is what the balance calls for: “restraint, abnegation, and the denial of immediate
self-interest.” What is required is “the subordination of state interest to balance of
power."3 While one can define “balance of power” in this way, it does not fit with
common usage and is not helpful.
Other scholars need not be disturbed by the change in behavior at Vienna
because their theories are at a higher level of generality. Thus a follower of
Kenneth Waltz could argue that the crucial element was that, after 1815, as before
it, no single state dominated the system and that France was not dismembered.?
The new pattern of diplomacy is at a level of detail chat international politics
theory does not and need not address. I find this position unsatisfactory.
Parsimony is purchased at too high a price: too much is put aside and tao little can
be explained.
But two converging lines of political science research, while probably exces-
sively stark for most historians, do speak to the shift from balance to Concert.
First, while the assumptions supporting balance of power theory are normally
unproblematic, two of them are likely to be undermined by a war against a
potential hegemon.1 After the Napoleonic wars, war was nat seen as a normal
tool of statecraft, and France, though reintegrated into international politics, was
seen not as a country like any other but as one that was especially likely to discurb
the status quo. Furthermore, the experience of fighting a long, difficult war
forged unusual bonds among the states. As a result, whether or not the basic idea
of checking power by power was abandoned, the normal practices of diplomacy
were. Despite significant conflicts of interest among them, all the states shared the
important interest of avoiding large wars and the need to maintain the new, more
cooperative arrangements.!! Furcher, states tended to be restrained in anticipa-
tion of the consequences of overambitious behavior; a heightened awareness of
the security dilemma reduced it. International politics was then characterized by
an unusual degree of moderation, respect for athers' interests, and attempts to
work with as many other states as possible.
This does not mean that the theory of the balance of power is incorrect. Rather,
it na longer applied because its assumptions were not met. [ronically, the
transformation was brought a2bout by the sort of cataclysmic war that represents
the balance of power in its starkest form—the formation of a grand coalition to
block a state that would otherwise dominate. Thus, without being overly dramatic,
one can argue that the balance of power has within it the seeds of its own
destruction.

8 Gulick, Europe's Classical Balance of Power, 38, 304.

# [ndeed, for Waltz, the fate of France or any ather great power would not matter as long as there
were enough states remaining to continue the multipolar system.
t The following paragraphs are drawn from Jervis, “From Balance o Goncert.”
1t Schroeder argues that this was less true for the (wo relatively invulnerable states, Britain and
Russia; Schroceder, “Did the Vienna Sectlement Rest,” 686-90. But even they were less willing 1o fight
than they had been in the eighteenth century.

American Historicar Review June 1992

 720 Robert Jervis

The second and related argument shares with balance of power the starting
points of anarchy and the security dilemma. But it notes that while the extremely
conflictual pattern of the balance is likely to emerge when many or all of the states
seek to expand, an alternative is possible when states “merely” want to protect
themselves. International politics sometimes resembles what is called a Prisoner's
Dilemma (PD). In this scenario, two men have been caught red-handed commit-
ting a minor crime. The district attorney knows that they are also guilty of 2 much
more serious offense. He tells each of them separately that if he confesses and
squeals on his buddy, he will go free and the former collcague will go to jail for
thirty years. If both of them refuse to give any information, they will be
prosecuted for the minor crime and be jailed for thirty days; if they both squeal,
plea-bargaining will get them ten years. In other words, as long as each criminal
cares only about himself, he will confess to the more serious crime na matter what
he thinks his colleague will do. If he confesses and his buddy does not, he will get
the best passible outcome (freedom); if he confesses and his buddy also does so,
the autcome will not be good (ten years in jail), but it will be better than keeping
silent and going to jail for thirty years. Since both can see this, both will confess.2
Paradoxically, if they had both been irrational and kept quiet, they would have
gone to jail for only 2 manth.
This is not a bad model for much of international politics and, indeed, for much
of social life.'* The actor’s first choice is to prevail aver or exploit the other. (For
convenience, this is labeled DC, meaning the actor defects from a friendly
coalition with the other, while the other cooperates with him.) Thus states often
want more arms than their neighbors and wish 10 use tougher bargaining tactics
in order to gain an upper hand in disputes. The second choice is mutual
cooperation (CC)—for example, compromise on a lower and mutually agreed-
upon level of arms. The third choice is mutal defection (DD)—unrestrained
competition, an arms race, or perhaps a war. The worst outcome would be for the
state to cooperate with the other while the other exploits it (CD)—cases in which
the state abides by an arms cantrol agreement while the adversary does not, the
state fallows a conciliatory path in a dispute while the adversary maintains a hard
line.
But DD—the actor’s third choice—is required by narrow self-incerest and
rationality only if the game is played just once; if the game is to be repeated for
years, this is not the case. While defecting on any particular play of the game will
12 It is interesting to note that in the real world this does not seem to happen as often as the theary
implics it should: Brian Forst and Judith Lucianavic, “The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Thcory and Reality,"
Journal of Criminal Justice, 5 (1977): 55-64. The reasans for the discrepancy probably are scveral,
incliding the danger of punishment for chose who squeal, which modifies the assumption of anarchy.
S The following paragraphs are based on Robert Jervis, “Cooperation under the Security
Dilemma," World P . 30 (1978): 167-214; Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New
York, 1984); Robert Keohane, After Hegemony (Princeton, N.J., 1984), the special issue of World
Politics, 38, no. 1 (1985), which is also available as Kenneth Oye, ed., Cosparation under Anarchy
(Princcton, 1985). For critical discussions of this literature, sce Robert Jervis, “Realism, Game
Theory,and Cooperation,” Warld Palitics, 40 (1988): 817-49; Joseph Grieco, *Anarchy and the Limits
of Caaperation,” Internatianal Organization, 42 (1988): 485-508; Steve Weber, Cooperation and Discord
in U.S.—Soviet Arms Control (Princeton, 1991). For an ahernative, but not complecely unrelaced,
discussion of cooperation that is less parsimonious {or less stereotyped), see Alexander George, Philip
Farley, and Alexander Dallin, <ds., US-Saviet Security Caoperation (New Yark, 1988).

AuERICAN HISTORICAL Review June 1992

 A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert 721

both protect the actor if the rival/partner defects and brings significant gains if the
rival does not, it will also decrease the chances of cooperation in the future. Thus,
starting from assumptions similar to those of the balance of power, this model
indicates that a different, more cooperative, way of dealing with anarchy and the
security dilemma can emerge under certain circumstances. Cooperation is mast
likely when the gains from exploiting the other (DC) and the costs of being
exploited (CD) are both relatively low, when mutual competition (DD) is much
worse than mutual cooperation (CC), when exploitation is not much better than
mutual cooperation, and when being exploited is not much worse than mutual
competition.
Because it is in the interest of each state to cooperate only if others are doing so,
prospects for cooperation are increased if states can tell if others are living up to
their agreements (what is known as “transparency”) and if they can act effectively
in the event that others are not. In a parallel way, the security dilemma will be less
of a barrier to cooperation if defensive postures are more potent than offensive
ones and if observers can distinguish between the two. Under these circum-
stances, states can provide for their own security without greatly menacing others,
and mutual security will be possible. To reap the advantages of cooperation that
these circumstances permit, actors are often well served by a contingent strategy
that matches what they do with what others are doing. The most obvious of these
strategies is recipracity—actors will cooperate if others cooperate and defect if
others defect. In effect, this strategy temoves both temptation and fear by making
it impossible for either side to exploit the other over a long period. The chaice is
then between conflict and mutual cooperation, and, in the PD model, cooperation
is preferred.
Even in the fuller treatments, this sketch, because it is parsimonious, is highly
simplified. Bue 1 think it captures the flavor of the Concert pattern. The costs of
war (DD) were seen as higher than they had been in the cighteenth century (in
part because even a successful war might lead to revolutioni4) and the value of
mutual cooperation similarly increased as the new system met the basic needs of
the states and held out the chance for not only avoiding large-scale violence buc
also for solving important problems. Although the hope for unilateral competitive
advantage (DC) was not absent, to make such short-run gains appeared foolish
because it would not be oo long before athers responded with hostility. The
higher levels of communication and more frequent meetings among national
leaders increased transparency, lowered the level of debilitating suspicions that
plague many attempts at cooperation, and made it less likely that any statesman
could think that he could successfully cheat on understandings with others.
Furthermore, statesmen had grounds for believing that others shared these
preferences, thus facilitating long-run reciprocity. As a result, in addition to
making direct and immediate bargains and trades, states could refrain from
taking advantage of others' temporary weaknesses in the expectation that, when
the tables were turned, others would behave similarly toward them rather than
allow the system to return to the more conflictual balance of power pattern,

14 Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Seulement Rest,” 700.

AMERICAN HISTORICAL RFVIEW June 1992

722 Robert Jeruis
Although the two lines of analysis I have presented are couched in terms
different from those used by Schroeder, I see them as consistent with much of
what he says. But there is a divergence at two important points. First, Schroeder
here hints and elsewhere has argued extensively that, contrary to the view
outlined catlier, the balance of power did not yield stability and restraint.’s While
some logic might indicate that the invisible hand of competition would limit
excessive national ambitions and maintain the system on some sort of even keel
despite—or because of—high conflict and wars, in practice, this picture is no more
accurate than is the idealized view of a laissez-faire domestic economy. Some
states—such as Britain and Russia—were sufficiently strong and geographically
well positioned as to be almost invulnerable, able to dominate many areas of the
world and meddle in others. For less advantaged states, particularly Austria,
security simply could not have been gained by balance of power rules in which
territory, influence, and prestige could only be gained at the expense of others. [n
the absence of a sense of common interests, respect for small powers and
intermediary badies, and related mechanisms and modes of organization, there
would be so much vialence that the system would simply tear itself to pieces. In
part, the two views can be recanciled by arguing that even though Schroeder’s
balance of power world is extremely harsh and violent, it is stable in the minimal
sense that no one state will dominate and that some of the other restraints noted
earlier will hold. But the picture Schroeder draws does not easily fit with the
expectations generated by the models that most American students of interna-
tional politics find useful and appealing.
Second, the transformation of the system from balance of pawer to equilibrium
that Schroeder portrays involves more profound changes than those I have
sketched. In my outline, the actors are still driven by narrow self-interest,
conceived of in ways quite similar o those prevailing under the balance. The
numerous and significant changes in behavior are produced by changes in the
dangers and opportunities presented by the environment. For Schroeder, how-
ever, the change penetrated to states’ gaals, outloaks, values, and the system's
organizing principles. States came away from the decade of war with reduced
ambitions and a willingness to seek adjustment to, rather than domination of,
rivals. As Schroeder remarks in discussing che conflicts of the mid-1840s, “Austria
was no longer working to keep France out of Italy and France was no longer
trying to throw Austria out."® The fact that statesmen did not take every
apportunity to expand represented not only changed calculations but, more
impottant, 2 change in the conception of self-interest. Thus, after 1815, Russia no
longer used alliances with Austria and Prussia “to keep both German powers
insecure, dependent on Russia, and locked in rivairy with each other,” as had been
the case before the Napoleonic wars.!?
Butit s too simple to argue that the post-1815 system was moderate because the

5 Paul Schroeder, “The {9th Century System: Balance of Pawer or Political Equilibrium?" Review
of International Studies, 15 (1989): 135-53; Paul W. Schracder, The Transformation of Euvopean Palitics
17871948 (New York, forthcoming).
18 1bid., chap. 17, p. 26.
17 Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Seclement Rest,” 688; also see 701-02.

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 A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert 723

actors were satisfied with the status quo.'’® The hopes for expansion were
mediated by a change in values and outlook. Statesmen thought more in terms of
the international system and what was necessary to keep ic functioning.!® Central
was “a mutual consensus on norms and rules, respect for law, and an overalt
balance among the various actors in terms of rights, security, status, claims, duties,
and satisfactions rather than power."® [nstead of seeking “ail possible compen-
sations and indemnities simply in order to keep up with or get ahead of its
neighbor and rival .. ., [states focused ou] the needs of Europe [which] were
understood more in legal, moral, and socio-political terms than in terms of simple
power."® This analysis resembles “regime theory," in which political scientists
have stressed how shared principles, norms, and procedures can permit sustained
cooperation despite significant conflicts of interest.? But Schroeder places
greater stress on law, legitimacy, and rights: “the Vienna equilibrium represented
ideally a balance between what each state needed or claimed to need in order to
fulfili jts proper role and function within the European family and what that
family as a whole considered necessary and proper.”s
The change in values and beliefs about how politics can and should be
conducted was very great. It cannot easily be accounted for by parsimonious
models that treat the ideas and preferences of actors as given and proceed from
there to work out the expected interaction paccerns.®* The conception of
self-interest expanded, and statesmen came to believe that menacing states could
best be contained by keeping closé ties to them. A necessary, though probably not
sufficient, cause for the transformation of world politics then was a transforma-
tion in thinking about world politics. The new ways of thinking grew out of the
failure to gain security through more conventional policies in the Napoleonic
wars, but the learning process was not a simple reflection of that experience.
Insight, creativity, and independent thinking played a greater role than they do
in most political science treatments of learning.? Ideas had real autonomy; they
were not the direct and predictable consequence of changed material conditions.
The change cannot, however, be seen as operating anly at the level of individual
states and statesmen. The new approach had to be adopted by mast if nat all of
them if it was to succeed. Any state that abandaned balance of power on its awn
would be rebuffed if not exploited by others that did not. While the balance of
power is individualistic in its premise that each state will try to advance its awn
interests, the Concert requires that states think more broadly and rely more on
others, who are expected to be doing so as well. When states are restrained more

18 Pau| Schroeder, “Containment Nineteenth-Century Style: How Russia Was Restrained,” Seuth
Adanic Quarierly, 82 (1983): 6-9.
© For further discussion, see Paul Schroeder, “The Transformation of Politicai Thinking,
1787-1848,” in Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, eds., Coping with Complevity in the International System
(Boulder, Cola., forthcoming).
2 Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Seulement Rest,” 694.
# Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest,” 697.
# For a good summary, see Stephen Krasner, fniernational Regimes (Ithaca, N.Y., 1988).
2 Schroeder, “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest,” 698.
24 For further discussion, see Jervis, “Realism,Game Theory, and Coaperation,” 324-28.
8 The best collection is George Breslauer and Philip Tetlack, Learning in U.S. and Soviel Foreign
Policy (Boulder, Cold., 1891).

AmMzrIcAN HisTomiCAL REVIEW X <June 1992

 724 Robert Jevvis
by the desire to maintain ties to friends and allies than by threats from enemies,?
a high level of mutually reinforcing behavior is required. Most of the states need
to contribute to the building and maintaining of a pattern of relations that sustains
them in their moderation.
This kind of system, unlike the balance of power, calls for explicit and
self-conscious management. Each state not only depends on others doing their
share but must also regulate its own behavior so that it is not excessively
disturbing. Leaders must attend not only to whether others are threatening them
but also to whether their actions—or inactions—threaten the vital interests of
others and thereby menace the entire system. Thus the great powers in general
and Britain in particular helped bring on World War I when they failed to
respond to evénts such as Romania's anti-Austrian alignment by asking them-
selves “how . . . this new, crucial development [could] be managed . .., harmo-
nized with the overall European balance, incorporated into the prevailing
international system, withouc raising the already fearful strains upon that system
ta the point of explosion.”?” But we still know too little about the conditions thac
are most propitious for this kind of system maintenance. Supportive domestic
interests and structures probably play a large role, especially in the economic
arena,® but political science has not fully engaged either this question or the
closely related one of the dynamics of a system based on dealing with potential
enemies by grouping with rather than balancing against them.
Indeed, a skeptic may wonder whether the analysis is complete because the
system as described is vulnerable to a return to a more predatory stance on the
part of one or more of the major states. Schroeder sees this decay as leading to
World War 1. It is dangerous for a state to be concerned with rights and
responsibilities if others focus on power and seek to exploit weakness or even
ignore the needs of the system. Even though maintzining such a system is less
demanding than establishing it,2 the task still is not easy; although there are
significant tools states can use against those who would exploit the system—such
as exclusion from it%—these may not be powerful enough to cope with those who
.seek its overthirow. In the balance of power, the stability of the system is
maintained by states following narrow, short-run self-interese. Wars may be
frequent, but at least the imperatives that leadets have to follow are relatively clear
and simple. In a Concert system, especially of the type described by Schroeder,
states and national leaders must have wider concerns, a longer-run perspective,
and greater wisdom.
% See Schroeder, “Containment Nineteenth-Century Style”, and Paul Schroeder, “Alliances,
1815-1945: Weapons of Power and Tools of Management, Klaus Knort, ed., Historical Dimensions
of National Security (Lawrence, Kan., 1976), 927-62.
7 Paul Schroeder, “Romania and the Great Powers hefore 1914," Revus roumaine d'histoire, 14
(1975): 52-53.
7 Krasner, International Regimes; Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, Jr., Power and Interdependence
(Boston, 1977); Helen Milner, Resisting Protectionism (Princeton, N.J., 1988)
* Keohane, After Hegemony.
3¢ Schroeder, “Did the Vienna System Rest," 700.

AMeRiCAN HisToricaL Review ’ June 1992