Ebook Military Strategy of Great Powers Managing Power Asymmetry and Structural Change in The 21St Century Cass Military Studies 1St Edition Hakan Edstrom Online PDF All Chapter

Military Strategy of Great Powers:
Managing Power Asymmetry and

Structural Change in the 21st Century
(Cass Military Studies) 1st Edition
Håkan Edström
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/military-strategy-of-great-powers-managing-power-as
ymmetry-and-structural-change-in-the-21st-century-cass-military-studies-1st-edition-h
akan-edstrom/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
Chess Explained The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition Sam Collins
https://ebookmeta.com/product/chess-explained-
the-c3-sicilian-1st-edition-sam-collins/
Starting Out The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition John Emms
https://ebookmeta.com/product/starting-out-the-c3-sicilian-1st-
edition-john-emms/
The Paper Issue 83 1st Edition Origamiusa
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-paper-issue-83-1st-edition-
origamiusa/
The American Revolution 1774 83 2nd Edition Daniel

Marston
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-american-
revolution-1774-83-2nd-edition-daniel-marston/
The Gendered and Colonial Lives of Gurkhas in Private
Security From Military to Market Advances in Critical
Military Studies 1st Edition Amanda Chisholm
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-gendered-and-colonial-lives-of-
gurkhas-in-private-security-from-military-to-market-advances-in-
critical-military-studies-1st-edition-amanda-chisholm/
NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies

2021 Compliance and Integrity in International Military
Trade 1st Edition Robert Beeres
https://ebookmeta.com/product/nl-arms-netherlands-annual-review-
of-military-studies-2021-compliance-and-integrity-in-
international-military-trade-1st-edition-robert-beeres/
BNF 83 (British National Formulary) March 2022 Joint

Formulary Committee
https://ebookmeta.com/product/bnf-83-british-national-formulary-
march-2022-joint-formulary-committee/
English Grammar Exercises with answers Part 4 Your

quest towards C2 1st Edition Daniel B. Smith
https://ebookmeta.com/product/english-grammar-exercises-with-
answers-part-4-your-quest-towards-c2-1st-edition-daniel-b-smith/
A Tenth Century Byzantine Military Manual The Sylloge

Tacticorum 22 Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies
1st Edition Georgios Chatzelis
https://ebookmeta.com/product/a-tenth-century-byzantine-military-
manual-the-sylloge-tacticorum-22-birmingham-byzantine-and-
ottoman-studies-1st-edition-georgios-chatzelis/
Cass Military Studies
MILITARY STRATEGY OF
GREAT POWERS
MANAGING POWER ASYMMETRY AND STRUCTURAL
CHANGE IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg

Military Strategy of Great Powers
This book explores the military strategies of the five system-determining

great powers during the twenty-first century.
The book’s point of departure is that analyses of countries’ defence
strategies should acknowledge that states come in various shapes and sizes
and that their strategic choices are affected by their perceptions of their
position in the international system and by power asymmetries between
more and less resourceful states. This creates a diversity in strategies that is
often overlooked in theoretically oriented analyses. The book examines how
five major powers – the United States, China, the United Kingdom, France
and Russia – have adjusted their strategies to improve or maintain their
relative position and to manage power asymmetries during the twenty-first
century. It also develops and applies an analytical framework for exploring
and categorising the strategies pursued by the five major powers which
combines elements of structural realism with research on power transition
theory and status competition. The concluding chapter addresses questions
related to stability and change in the present international system.
This book will be of interest to students of strategic studies, foreign policy
and International Relations.
Håkan Edström is an Associate Professor of Political Science and a Senior

Lecturer in War Studies at the Swedish Defence University.
Jacob Westberg is an Associate Professor of War Studies and a Senior

Lecturer in Security Policy and Strategy at the Swedish Defence University.
Cass Military Studies
Understanding Insurgent Resilience

Organizational Structures and the Implications for Counterinsurgency
Andrew D. Henshaw
Military Strategy of Middle Powers
Competing for Security, Influence and Status in the 21st Century
Håkan Edström & Jacob Westberg
Military Mission Formations and Hybrid Wars
New Sociological Perspectives
Edited by Thomas Vladimir Brond, Uzi Ben-Shalom and Eyal Ben-Ari
French Defence Policy Since the End of the Cold War
Alice Pannier and Olivier Schmitt
War and International Relations
A Critical Analysis
Balazs Szanto
A Global History of Pre-Modern Warfare
Before the Rise of the West, 10,000 BCE–1500 CE
Kaushik Roy
Military Strategy of Great Powers
Managing Power Asymmetry and Structural Change in the Twenty-first Century
Counterinsurgency Warfare and Brutalisation
The Second Russian-Chechen War
Roberto Colombo and Emil Aslan Souleimanov
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Cass-Military-Studies/book-series/CMS
Military Strategy of Great
Powers
Managing Power Asymmetry and
Structural Change in the
Twenty-first Century

First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2022 Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg
The right of Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with
sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Edström, Håkan, author. | Westberg, Jacob, author.
Title: Military strategy of great powers: managing power asymmetry
and structural change in the 21st century/Håkan Edström, and Jacob
Westberg.
Other titles: Managing power asymmetry and structural change in the
21st century
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, 2022. |
Series: Cass military studies | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021013041 (print) | LCCN 2021013042 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367743192 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367743208 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003157113 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Strategic rivalries (World politics) | Great
powers‐‐History‐‐21st century. | United States‐‐Military policy. |
China‐‐Military policy. | United Kingdom‐‐Military policy. |
France‐‐Military policy. | Russia (Federation)‐‐Military policy.
Classification: LCC JZ5595 .E37 2022 (print) | LCC JZ5595 (ebook) |
DDC 355.02‐‐dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013041
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021013042
ISBN: 978-0-367-74319-2 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-74320-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-15711-3 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157113
Typeset in TimesNewRoman
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
Contents
List of illustrations vi
Acknowledgements viii
List of abbreviations ix
1 The diversity of great powers’ strategies 1
2 Exploring great power strategies 7
3 Operationalising the dependent variable 39
4 The US and the strategy of the unipole 78
5 The strategies of the contesters 127
6 The strategies of the conservators 177
7 Managing power asymmetry and structural change 233
Index 253
List of Illustrations
Figures
2.1 The structure of the international system in the present

1+1+3 system 32
Tables
2.1 Indicators of the economic capabilities of six potential

system-determining powers 2020 29
2.2 Indicator of the military capability of six potential system-
determining powers 30
3.1 Four alternative unipolar alignment strategies 50
3.2 Alternative alignment strategies towards the unipolar power 56
3.3 Operationalising military strategy 69
4.1 Annual defence expenditure, the US 2001–2019 96
4.2 The main traditional units and equipment of the US
armed forces 2000–2020 99
4.3 The main airborne enablers of the US armed forces
2000–2020 102
4.4 The main strategic nuclear forces of the US 2000–2020 104
4.5 The main US deployments of armed units abroad
2000–2020 114
4.6 The shifts in the US’s alignment strategy during the
twenty-first century 118
4.7 The military strategy of the US 122
5.1 Annual defence expenditure, China 2001–2019 134
5.2 The main traditional units and equipment of the Chinese
5.3 The main airborne enablers of the Chinese armed forces
2000–2020. 137
5.4 The main strategic nuclear forces of China 2000–2020 138
List of Illustrations vii
5.5 The main Chinese deployments of armed units abroad
2000–2020 141
5.6 The alignment strategies of China 144
5.7 The military strategy of China 146
5.8 Annual defence expenditure, Russia 2001–2019 157
5.9 The main traditional units and equipment of the Russian
5.10 The main airborne enablers of the Russian armed forces
2000–2020 160
5.11 The main strategic nuclear forces of Russia 2000–2020 161
5.12 The main Russian deployments of armed units abroad
2000–2020 164
5.13 The alignment strategies of Russia 167
5.14 The military strategy of Russia 169
6.1 Annual defence expenditure, France 2001–2019 186
6.2 The main traditional units and equipment of the French
6.3 The main airborne enablers of the French armed forces
2000–2020 189
6.4 The main strategic nuclear forces of France 2000–2020 190
6.5 The main French deployments of armed units abroad
2000–2020 194
6.6 The alignment strategies of France 197
6.7 The military strategy of France 200
6.8 Annual defence expenditure, the UK 2001–2019 210
6.9 The main traditional units and equipment of the British
6.10 The main airborne enablers of the British armed forces
2000–2020 213
6.11 The main strategic nuclear forces of the UK 2000–2020 214
6.12 The main British deployments of armed units abroad
2000–2020 217
6.13 The alignment strategies of the UK 222
6.14 The military strategy of the UK 225
7.1 The alignment strategies of the system-determining states 234
7.2 The ends-element of the system-determining states’ strategies 242
7.3 The means-element of the system-determining states’
strategies 244
7.4 The ways-element of the system-determining states’
strategies 246
7.5 The military strategies of the system-determining states’ 246
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to our senior editor, Andrew Humphrys, and to our editorial
assistant, Bethany Lund-Yates, for once again wholeheartedly providing their
support for our project. We would also like to express our gratitude to our
colleague, Dr Malin Karlsson, for carefully reading initial drafts of the
manuscript and providing suggestions for improvements. Thank you!
Abbreviations
ABM Anti-Ballistic Missiles

ADMM+ ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus
AI Artificial Intelligence
AIDS Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ART Actor, Region, Theme
ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations
AU African Union
AWACS Airborne Warning and Control Systems
BCO British Cabinet Office
BCT Brigade Combat Team
BMoD British Ministry of Defence
BP British Parliament
BPT Balance of Power Theory
BRIC Brazil, Russia, India and China
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CAR Central African Republic
CBRNE Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and
high yield Explosives
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CFE Conventional Forces in Europe
CICA Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building
Measures in Asia
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
CMC Central Military Commission
CMT Combat Mission Team
CNO Computer Network Operation
CPT Cyber Protection Team
CSCAP Council on Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific
Region
CSL Cooperative Security Locations
CSOC Cyber Security Operations Centre
x Abbreviations
CSTO Collective Security Treaty Organization
CSMB Confidence-and Security-Building Measures
DCDC Doctrine, Concepts and Development Centre
DoD Department of Defense
DPG Defense Planning Guidance
DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo
EBRD European Bank for Reconstruction and
Development
ECM Electronic Counter-Measure
ESDP European Security and Defence Policy
EU European Union
EUFOR Althea European Union Force Althea
EU NAVFOR MED European Union Naval Force in the Mediterranean
EUTM Mali European Union Training Mission to Mali
EUTM RCA European Union Training Mission to Central
African Republic
EW Electronic Warfare
FCAS Future Combat Air System
FMoD French Ministry of Defence
FNISA French Network and Information Security Agency
(in French: Agence nationale de la sécurité des
systèmes d’information, ANSSI)
FPM French Prime Minister
FOS Forward Operating Sites
FPC Foreign Policy Concept
G6 Group of Six
G7 Group of Seven
G8 Group of Eight
G20 Group of Twenty
GBSD Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GLCM Ground Launched Cruise Missiles
HARM High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles
HST Hegemonic Stability Theory
HUMINT Human Intelligence
IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development
ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
ICT Information Communications Technologies
IMF International Monetary Fund
INF Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
IPE International Political Economy
IR International Relations
IRBM Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles
ISAF International Security Assistance Force
Abbreviations xi
ISIL Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant
ISR Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance
JIDD Jakarta International Defence Dialogue
JIE Joint Information Environment
KFOR Kosovo Force
LCS Littoral Combat Ship
LHD Landing Helicopter Dock
LMSR Large Medium-Speed Roll-On/Roll-Off Military
Transport Ships
LRSO Long-Range Stand-Off
MASINT Measurement and Signature Intelligence
MBT Main Battle Tanks
MINURCAT Mission des Nations Unies en République Centre
Africaine et au Tchad (French)
MINUSMA Mission multidimensionnelle Intégrée des Nations
Unies pour la Stabilisation au Mali (French)
MIRV Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicle
MLP Mobile Landing Platform
MOB Main Operating Bases
MONUC Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies en
République démocratique du Congo (French)
MONUSCO Mission de l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour la
Stabilisation en République démocratique du
Congo (French)
MOOTW Military Operations Other Than War
MRBM Medium Range Ballistic Missiles
NAOC National Airborne Operations Center
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NDS National Defense Strategy
NSS National Security Strategy
NEACD Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue
NGO Non-governmental Organisations
NMS National Military Strategy
NMT National Mission Team
NPR Nuclear Posture Review
NSC National Security Concept
NSS National Security Strategy
OPEC Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
OSCE Organization for Security and Co-operation in
Europe
PoFR President of the French Republic
POTUS President of the United States
PTT Power Transition Theory
QDR Quadrennial Defense Review
QRMR Quadrennial Roles and Mission Review
xii Abbreviations
PLA People’s Liberation Army
RMA Revolution in Military Affairs
RSC Regional Security Complexes
SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
SAM Surface-to-Air Missiles
SEAL Sea, Air, Land
SEATO Southeast Asia Treaty Organization
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SDR Strategic Defence Review
SFOR Stabilisation Force
SIGINT Signals Intelligence
SIT Social Identity Theory
SLBM Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missiles
SLD Shangri-La Dialogue
SLOC Sea Lines of Communication
SSN Nuclear-Powered Attack Submarines
START Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
STOVL Short Take-Off Vertical Landing
TACAMO Take Charge and Move Out
THAAD Terminal High Altitude Area Defense
UAE United Arab Emirates
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
UK United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland)
UNAMID United Nations Assistance Mission in Darfur
UNIFIL United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon
UNFICYP United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus
UNMIL United Nations Mission in Liberia
UNMIS United Nations Mission in Sudan
UNMISS United Nations Mission in the Republic of South
Sudan
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UNSOS United Nations Assistance Office in Somalia
UNOMSIL United Nations Observer Mission in Sierra Leone
US United States (of America)
USCYBERCOM US Cyber Command
USDoD US Department of Defense
USJCS US Joint Chiefs of Staff
USJFCOM US Joint Forces Command
USNIC US National Intelligence Council
USSR Soviet Union
USSTRATCOM US Strategic Command
VEO Violent Extremist Organisation
WMD Weapons of Mass Destruction
WPNS Western Pacific Naval Symposium
Abbreviations xiii
WTO World Trade Organization
WWI First World War
WWII Second World War
1 The diversity of great powers’
strategies
Contrary to mainstream research informed by structural realism, this book

is based on the claim that analyses of defence strategies should acknowledge
that states come in different shapes and sizes and that their perceived in-
terests and choices of strategic means and ways are affected by power
asymmetries between more and less resourceful states. In earlier studies, we
have explored the strategic adjustments during the past two decades by both
small states and middle powers (see Edström et al. 2019; Edström and
Westberg 2020a; 2020b). In this book, we turn our attention to how a more
resourceful category of states, the ‘system determining states’ – the super-
powers and great powers – have adjusted their strategies to manage the
power asymmetries in the international system of the twenty-first century.1
For reasons presented in Chapter 2, we argue that the present international
system consists of one superpower – the United States (US), one emergent
potential superpower – China and three great powers – the United Kingdom
(UK), France and Russia. All five states are included in this study.
The collapse of the Soviet Union (USSR) left the US as the world’s sole
superpower. According to one contemporary observer, Charles Krauthammer,
the emerging post-Cold War order was a ‘unipolar moment’. However, ac-
cording to Krauthammer, this did not mean that the US was now free to ‘come
home’ and focus on other issues than power competition and wars. Instead, it
continuously had to provide international leadership in the struggle against new
emerging strategic threats related to the proliferation of weapons of mass de-
struction (WMD) and the rise of several so-called ‘Weapon States’, exemplified
by Iraq, Libya and North Korea (Krauthammer 1990). Prominent researchers
using the theoretical prism of structural realism argued that this unipolar
moment would be brief and replaced by a bi- or multipolar order with com-
peting great powers (Mearsheimer 1990; Layne 1993; Waltz 1993). At the end
of the first decade of the post-Cold War era, William Wohlforth (1999) instead
argued that the unipolar order could be both durable and peaceful if the US
continued to pursue its policy of preponderance and international engagements.
The debate on the stability of the present unipolar system and the US’s ‘best
strategy’ has continued during the first decades of the twenty-first century
without resulting in any consensus among scholars.2
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157113-1
2 The diversity of great powers’ strategies
The lack of consensus in the debate on the unipolar moment is not sur-
prising – the study of international politics and strategy has always been
characterised by diverging views within and between competing theoretical
perspectives. However, a consequence of the continued focus on the stability
of the unipolar system and the US’s strategies is that questions related to
other major powers’ responses to unipolarity have received less attention.
Moreover, even when strategies of ‘secondary great powers’ have been ad-
dressed, the arguments are generally based on the behaviour of states in
previous bi- or multipolar systems or theoretical assumptions, rather than
the actual strategies and behaviour of great powers in the present unipolar
system. Furthermore, analyses of great powers usually treat these states as a
single category of states, neglecting differences in relative power, status and
position in the present system.
In contrast, we do not expect that changes in the distribution of power
among the most resourceful states in the international system will provide
the major powers with identical structural incentives and opportunities.
Instead, differences related to the distribution of power and relative posi-
tional rank will provide the major powers with different strategic opportu-
nities and priorities. We see three main reasons for this. First, a system with
only one superpower makes it necessary to separate the strategies of the
unipolar power from the strategies of the other system-determining states.
The unique position of an established unipolar power means that it can only
improve its relative position by trying to achieve hegemony, a move that, if
successful, would threaten all other states’ autonomy and change the non-
hierarchical nature of the international system. In maintaining its position as
the sole superpower, the unipolar power, therefore, has incentives and
options that are unique for its position as the sole superpower, which
separates it from the other system-determining states. Moreover, the ana-
lysis of the strategies of the ‘second-ranked’ great powers, must take the
strategies of the first ranked states into account.
Second, if we are correct in describing the present international system as
a 1+1+3 system, China holds a second unique position as an emerging
potential superpower, which also gives it structural incentives that are dif-
ferent from all other powers when it comes to improving or maintaining its
relative position. Third, we will also argue that there are important differ-
ences between the three great powers, France, Russia and the UK, relating
to their position in the system and their general views regarding the present
liberal international order. Using a distinction between status quo (or sa-
tisfied) and revisionist (or dissatisfied) powers, we argue that states are also
affected by how they appreciate their present position in the system and how
they relate to the status quo.
How a specific state perceives its relative position is likely to be influenced
by this state’s position in the previous system. For Russia, even a recognised
position as a great power within the present unipolar system represents a
loss in rank as compared to its superpower position in the bipolar system of
The diversity of great powers’ strategies 3
the Cold War era. This makes Russia a potential revisionist power, likely to
practice unilateral or collective counter-balancing strategies towards the sole
remaining superpower. For China, its present position is higher regarded in
comparison to previous positions during the nineteenth and twentieth cen-
turies, and its economic development has benefitted from the liberal eco-
nomic order created by the US. However, China may still have greater
ambitions, and its attitude towards the present system may change. France
and the UK, on the other hand, had lost their status as first ranked states
during the first part of the twentieth century and belonged to the winning
side in the Cold War. Arguably, these two states can be assumed generally
supportive of the liberal post-Cold War order that emerged after the im-
plosion of the USSR, acting as status quo powers in relation to the system
and bandwagoning with the US. However, if the sole superpower were to
pursue unilateral strategies that are perceived to threaten their vital interests,
France and the UK might instead turn to balance strategies, and then
practice various forms of hard and soft balancing in cooperation with other
states.
Studying the strategies of ‘the big five’, we focus on two interconnected
levels of strategy, which may, at an aggregated level, be referred to as ‘de-
fence strategy’. Defence strategy is defined as an interconnected set of ideas
on how politically defined strategic ends should be achieved through a
combination of alignment strategies and suitable strategic ways of devel-
oping and employing military means. Alignment strategies refer to different
ways of interacting on a political level with other states and organisations to
promote the state’s interests relating to security, influence or status. This
aspect of strategy is a part of states’ external efforts to promote their per-
ceived interest. Examples of alignment strategies are the balance of power,
bandwagoning, isolation and hedging. Military strategy concerns the crea-
tion, direction and use of military force. This aspect of strategy focuses on
states’ internal efforts to promote their interest by developing and using
their military resources. Diplomatic and economic strategies, which do not
concern questions related to military power, are not included in this defi-
nition of defence strategy.
Systematic comparative empirical studies on major powers’ strategic ad-
justments in the international system in the post-Cold War era are very
rare.3 With this study, we aim to contribute to research in two main ways.
First, we intervene in the debate on the stability of the present unipolar
system by offering an analytical framework and an empirical approach for
exploring and categorising the actual strategies for security, influence and
status pursued by the major powers in the international system of the
twenty-first century. In doing so, we are also able to present a more detailed
analysis of how the strategies of the five system-determining states interact
and affect the stability of the system, as well as the possibility of systematic
change. Second, explaining why states pursue different strategies, we com-
plement the parsimonious analytical framework of structural realism and
Balance of Power Theory (BPT) with insights from research on status
competition and Power Transition Theory (PTT). Thereby, we offer a new
comprehensive theoretical approach for analysing how asymmetric power
relations, status and different priorities regarding basic aims such as se-
curity, influence strategic choices of major powers. More specifically, four
main questions will be addressed:
i. How have the defence strategies of the US developed during the twenty-
first century and do US strategic choices correspond to expectations
drawn from BPT and PTT?
ii. How have China and Russia adjusted their defence strategies in
response to the strategies of the US and changes in the distribution of
power in the international system during the twenty-first century? To
what extent do the strategic choices of these two potentially revisionist
‘secondary major powers’ correspond to the expectations drawn from
BPT and PTT?
iii. How have the UK and France adjusted their defence strategies in
response to the strategies of the US and changes in the distribution of
power in the international system during the twenty-first century? To
what extent do the strategic choices of these two potentially status quo
oriented ‘secondary major powers’ correspond to the expectations
drawn from BPT and PTT?
iv. How do the strategic choices among the five system-determining states
interact and affect stability and change in the international system?
In the next two chapters, we present a framework for analysing the align-
ment and military strategies of great powers in unipolar systems. In the
following three empirical chapters, we systematically map and analyse the
strategies these states have pursued during the twenty-first century using the
method of structured focused comparison based on our definition of mili-
tary strategy. The first empirical chapter focuses on the alignment and
military strategies of the sole superpower. Here, we will present an overview
of the strategies pursued by the three different US administrations during
the twenty-first century. The second chapter focuses on China and Russia,
two potentially revisionist great powers, which are more likely than the
other two great powers to perceive the present unipolar order as a threat to
their great power ambitions and autonomy. The third chapter focuses on the
strategies of France and the UK, two leading Western powers that fought
together with the US in the First (WWI) and Second World War (WWII).
During the Cold War, the two states differed in their support to US lea-
dership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Moreover, they
have mostly displayed different ambitions regarding Europe, with France
generally promoting a stronger and more independent Europe, and the UK
protecting the transatlantic link and using its ‘special relationship’ with the
US to promote its influence in global affairs. However, despite these
The diversity of great powers’ strategies 5
differences between the two Western great powers, both states have gen-
erally supported the post-Cold War order established in the 1990s.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that they will always support the US.
Actions that threaten to undermine multilateral institutions perceived as
important for promoting their national interest may provoke balancing
strategies from these status quo-oriented states. In the concluding chapter,
the results from our empirical chapters are summarised and form a basis for
an analysis of how the different strategies of the sole superpower and the
secondary great powers collectively affect the stability of the present uni-
polar system.
Notes
1 The term ‘system determining states’ was introduced by Robert Keohane in an
article from 1969. Keohane used this term to create a separate category for the first
ranked states whose number determined the polarity of a specific international
system, that is, if the system is uni-, bi- or multipolar (Keohane 1969). Following
Barry Buzan (2004), we will extend the term system determining states to include
both superpowers (which are still seen as determining the general polarity of the
international system) and great powers. The inclusion of different categories of
major powers makes it possible to analyse changes in the distribution of power in
the international system that do not include a change in polarity, for instance,
China’s rise to the status of a potential superpower. For a similar conception of
the present international system, see Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth
(2016a; 2016b).
2 For some of the more recent contributions, see Layne (2012), Nye (2012; 2015),
Wohlforth (2012), Brooks and Wohlforth (2016a; 2016b) and Mearsheimer (2018).
For a survey of the debate, see Monteiro (2014:7–13).
3 Admittedly, there are some theoretically informed studies on how competing
major powers may adjust their strategies for security or influence to manage ne-
gative power asymmetries (see Buzan 2004; Walt 2005; 2009). However, these
studies have not systematically explored and compared the actual strategies pur-
sued by the leading states. Additionally, there are a few examples of comparative
empirical research on strategic responses from both major powers and middle
powers, but this research is not primarily directed towards alignment and military
strategies (see Gilley and O’Neil 2014; Balzacq et al. 2019).
Bibliography
Balzacq, Thierry, Peter Dombrowski and Simon Reich (eds) (2019). Comparative
Grand Strategy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Brooks, Stephen and William Wohlforth (2016a). ‘The Rise and Fall of Great
Powers in the Twenty-First Century’ International Security, Volume 40, Issue 3.
Brooks, Stephen and William Wohlforth (2016b). America Abroad. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Buzan, Barry (2004). The United States and the Great Powers. Cambridge: Polity.
Edström, Håkan, Dennis Gyllensporre and Jacob Westberg (2019). Military Strategy
of Small States. Abingdon: Routledge.
Edström, Håkan and Jacob Westberg (2020a). ‘Between the Eagle and the Bear’
Comparative Strategy, Volume 39, Issue 2.
Edström, Håkan and Jacob Westberg (2020b). ‘The Defense Strategies of Middle
Powers’ Comparative Strategy, Volume 39, Issue 2.
Gilley, Bruce and Andrew O’Neil (eds) (2014). Middle Powers and the Rise of China.
Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
Keohane, Robert (1969). ‘Lilliputians’ Dilemmas’ International Organization,
Volume 23, Issue 2.
Krauthammer, Charles (1990). ‘The Unipolar Moment’ Foreign Affairs, Volume 70,
Issue 1.
Layne, Christopher (1993). ‘The Unipolar Illusion’ International Security, Volume
16, Issue 4.
Layne, Christopher (2012). ‘This Time It’s Real’ International Studies Quarterly,
Volume 56, Issue 1.
Mearsheimer, John (1990). ‘Back to the Future’ International Security, Volume 15,
Issue 1.
Mearsheimer, John (2018). The Great Delusion. New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press.
Monteiro, Nuno (2014). Theory of Unipolar Politics. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Nye, Joseph (2012). ‘The Twenty-First Century Will Not Be a “Post American”
World’ International Studies Quarterly, Volume 56, Issue 1.
Nye, Joseph (2015). Is the American Century Over? Cambridge: Polity.
Walt, Stephen (2005). Taming American Power. New York: Norton.
Walt, Stephen (2009). ‘Alliances in a Unipolar World’ World Politics, Volume 61,
Issue 1.
Waltz, Kenneth (1993). ‘The Emerging Structure of International Politics’
International Security, Volume 16, Issue 3.
Wohlforth, William (1999). ‘The Stability of a Unipolar World’ International
Security, Volume 24, Issue 1.
Wohlforth, William (2012). ‘How Not to Evaluate Theories’ International Studies
Quarterly, Volume 56, Issue 1.
2 Exploring great power strategies
Introduction
The study of International Relations (IR) has always been sensitive to the
overall developments in international politics. IR was introduced as a se
parate academic subject at the end of World War I with the establishment of
the Woodrow Wilson Chair of International Politics and the Department of
International Politics at the University of Aberystwyth in 1919.1 The new
academic discipline was founded to advance knowledge that could con
tribute to avoiding new wars. The solutions that the new discipline came up
with were influenced by ideas that we today would label liberal IR theory or
idealism. The early development of IR research mirrored the successes and
failures of the League of Nations and the political developments in Europe.
As noted by Robert Jackson and Georg Sørensen, liberal idealism was not ‘a
good intellectual guide to international relations in the 1930s’ (Jackson and
Sørensen 2007:36).
In the early Cold War era, realism established itself as the dominant
theoretical perspective, focusing on questions related to the competition
between the two superpowers, nuclear deterrence and the stability of the
bipolar order (Waltz 1979; Morgenthau 2006; Waltz 1979; Schelling 2008).
Following the economic crisis in the 1970s, questions relating to
International Political Economy (IPE), interdependence and international
regimes received increased attention, producing a debate between the ‘in
tellectual siblings’ neorealism and neoliberalism (Keohane 1984; Gilpin
1987; Keohane and Nye 2001; Keohane 1984; Gilpin 1987; Lamy 2005).
During the final decade of the Cold War, criticism against structural rea
lism2, and especially its leading theorist Kenneth Waltz, began to grow
(Keohane 1986). After the unexpected and unforeseen ending of the Cold
War, this critique exploded.
In the 1990s, several competing approaches such as constructivism, cri
tical theory, post-structuralism and feminism challenged structural realism
on both epistemological and ontological grounds by questioning its state-
centrism and ‘positivist’ focus on the distribution of material capacities.3
Reflecting on how IR theory and events in international politics have
DOI: 10.4324/9781003157113-2
interacted in previous eras, we expect that realism will find a more fertile
breeding ground in the present post-Cold War era as compared to the 1990s.
However, it is not equally clear whether it is Waltz’s particular version of
realist theory that needs to be resurrected. Waltz developed his theory to
analyse the stability of bipolar and multipolar systems, and to explain how
the international system generally affects states’ interest and strategies. He
did not address questions related to the unipolar system and ‘real world
strategies’ of specific states (Monteiro 2014:28–30). Moreover, some of his
basic assumptions related to states being ‘like units’, even prevented such
analysis. However, in our opinion, some of the insights of structural realism
are worth rescuing. In this chapter, we will present an analytical framework
that integrates elements of structural realism with theories on status com
petition and hegemonic stability, which are better suited when analysing
strategic choices made by individual states and when explaining why states
pursue different strategies.
In the first section, we discuss some of the basic premises of structural
realism including Waltz’s conceptualisation of the international system and
the debate between defensive and offensive realism. This is followed by a
second subsection focusing on the debate on the stability of unipolar sys
tems. Here we conclude that the disagreement among realist scholars in
dicates that BPT will not be able to provide one answer to the question of
the durability or peacefulness of unipolar systems. Moreover, all partici
pants in the debate on unipolarity seem to admit that the durability and
peacefulness of the system are dependent on the strategic choices of the
leading states. Still, the parsimonious analytical framework originally de
veloped by Waltz provides us with little or no guidance as to why states seem
to pursue different strategies, and the assumption of states being like units
does not help us.
In the second section, we discuss a theoretical perspective that is better
suited for the task of explaining why states pursue different strategies, PTT.
This theory is particularly useful for analysing the dynamics of unipolar
systems since its basic conception of the international system includes one
dominating state interacting with two different categories of states: satisfied
and dissatisfied states. The dominating state and the satisfied states are the
guardians of the status quo, and the dissatisfied states are the potentially
revisionist challengers. PTT presents several hypotheses relating to the
leading powers’ behaviour that contradict some of BPT’s basic assumptions.
In the following subsection, we introduce research on status competition.
This research body act as a complement to PTT in analysing how states’
different position in the present system affect their basic strategic choices.
Finally, we conclude this section by presenting our conceptualisation of the
present international system. Accounting for the change of the distribution
of power in the international system during the first decades of the twenty-
first century, we argue that it is necessary to introduce a distinction between
superpowers and great powers in the definition of the structure of the
Exploring great power strategies 9
international system. Inspired by arguments from Barry Buzan (2004) as
well as from Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth (2016a), we argue that
the present international system should be analysed as a 1+1+3 system, with
the US as the sole superpower, China as the sole emerging potential su
perpower and France, the UK and Russia as the three great powers.
Collectively, these states represent the highest category of the state system,
the ‘system-determining states’.4 Other categories of states that we explored
in previous studies include ‘middle powers’ and ‘small states’ (Edström and
Westberg 2020a; 2020b).
2.1 Change and stability in the post-Cold War international

system
The collapse of the USSR left the US as the world’s sole superpower.
According to Charles Krauthammer, the emerging post-Cold War order was
a ‘unipolar moment’ for the US. The US still had to provide international
leadership in the struggle against new emerging strategic threats such as the
proliferation of WMD and so-called ‘Weapon States’, exemplified by Iraq,
Libya, and North Korea (Krauthammer 1990). Joseph Nye, a prominent
liberal scholar of IR, reached a similar conclusion regarding the need for
continued active global US engagement and leadership (Nye 1990). Other
scholars, using the prism of structural realism, challenged these conclusions
and argued that the unipolar moment was nothing more than a ‘geopolitical
interlude’. Counter-balancing strategies by potential great powers and un
even differential economic growth rates would ensure that multi-polarity
was restored in the first decade of the twenty-first century (Layne 1993;
Waltz 1993). In the 1990s, the general developments in global politics
seemed to support the arguments in favour of an active US policy, consisting
of continued support to multilateral institutions and alliances originating
from the Cold War era, and successive US administrations continued to
pursue an active liberal internationalist strategy of multilateralism pro
moting Western values (Rose 2019).
However, in the initial decades of the twenty-first century, several dif
ferent actors and events challenged US pre-eminence. The 9/11 terrorist
attacks in 2001 were followed by several long-lasting, costly and un
successful military campaigns and operations related to the ‘Global War on
Terror’. Additionally, efforts to combat international terrorism accom
panied a new unilateral strategic approach to US global leadership. This
approach has been characterised as ‘a geostrategic wrecking ball’, threa
tening to weaken the US’s security partnerships and to destroy the inter
national institutional architecture created by the US during the Cold War
era (Ikenberry 2004:7). Moreover, the US’s leading position has increasingly
been challenged. China’s increased economic and military strengths have,
according to some scholars, established China as ‘an emergent potential su
perpower’ (Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a; 2016b), and, arguably, as a potential
future challenger to the US position as the sole superpower (Layne 2012).
Meanwhile, Russia has regained some of its previous military strength and
has openly challenged the post-Cold War security order in Europe by
waging war against Georgia (2008) and Ukraine (2014 onwards). In North-
East Asia, the risk of an open war between the US and North Korea,
potentially also between the US and China, has increased (Allison 2015; 2017;
Welsh 2017).
Additionally, populist reactions to globalisation, and frustration con
cerning the outcomes of previous military interventions, may make future
US governments more reluctant to use their military, economic and soft
power resources to support the international institutions that the liberal
world order is dependent on (Nye 2017). Furthermore, liberal values related
to universal human rights, democracy and free trade – ideas which were
thought to have won a definite victory against its previous challengers in the
early post-Cold War era producing an ‘end of history’ – are once again
openly contested (Fukuyama 1992; Patrick 2017; Posen 2018; Rose 2019;
Zakaria 2019).
2.1.1 Basic premises of structural realism

Analysing the magnitude of these changes and relating them to the question
of the stability of the unipolar system, we must first provide a more clear
definition of the international system. A system is, according to Kenneth
Waltz, composed of a structure and interacting units (Waltz 1979:79). This
means that analyses of the differences between the international system of
the early post-Cold War era and the present international system can focus
on two related but different aspects of the system: changes in the structure of
the system and changes related to patterns of interaction between the main
actors of the system.
In Waltz’s classical definition in Theory of International Politics, the
structure of a system is defined along three dimensions: (i) the basic ordering
principles of a system; (ii) the functional differentiation between units; and
(iii) the distribution of power. In the discussion on the first and most fun
damental dimension, Waltz contrasted the international system with do
mestic political systems. Domestic systems are centralised and hierarchical,
the ‘parts’, or the main actors in the system, ‘stand in relations of super- and
subordination’. In international political systems, the parts are formally
equal and none is ‘entitled to command’. International systems are therefore
decentralised and anarchical. The lack of central authority forces the main
actors of the system – the states – to develop self-help strategies to protect
and promote their interests. Waltz argued that each state must have the own
survival as its most fundamental end since it is a ‘prerequisite to achieving
any goal that states may have, other than […] promoting their own dis
appearance as political entities’. Beyond the survival motive, states’ ambi
tions could be ‘endlessly varied’, ranging from establishing a world empire
or just being left alone (Waltz 1979:88 and 91–92). Because great powers
very seldom face threat to their survival, we will extend this goal to include
general defensive goals related to security.
In a self-help system, the means for self-preservation and security fall into
two categories: internal efforts (moves to increase the state’s economic
capabilities and military strength) and external efforts (moves to strengthen
alliances and/or weaken the opposing ones). Because ‘power is a means and
not an end’, Waltz did not ‘expect the strong to combine with the strong in
order to increase the extent of their power over others’. Instead, states were
expected to practice counter-balancing strategies to block further expansion
by rising powers and prevent that the strongest expansionist state forged
world hegemony. The same logic was assumed to apply to ‘secondary states’
which, ‘if they were free to choose’, would ‘flock to the weaker side’, to
protect themselves against the long-term greater threat from the stronger
expansive power (Waltz 1979:118 and 126–127).
This way, the basic ordering principle, anarchy, creates incentives for
states to act in a certain manner (prioritising survival and if necessary,
practising counter-balancing), but the system does not force any states to ‘do
the right thing’. However, states that make the wrong priorities risk ex
tinction if they suffer an attack by a more resourceful state. The counter-
balancing strategies also reproduce the non-hierarchical system and prevent
it from turning into a hegemonic imperial system dominated by one state.
Offensive realist scholars challenge the argument that priority should be
given to self-preservation and maintaining the relative position in the system.
They argue that states instead should pursue strategies that improve their
relative position and increase their ability to enforce their will on other states
(Morgenthau 2006Mearsheimer 2001; 2018; Morgenthau 2006). Governments
and people, Morgenthau argued, may have many different aims relating to
fundamental values like freedom, security and prosperity. They may define
their goals in terms of specific ideological or religious ideas and may choose
various means and ways to realise such aims. However, ‘whenever they strive
to realize their goal by means of international politics, they do so by striving
for power’. Power, defined as ‘man’s control over the minds and actions of
other men […] a psychological relation between those who exercise it and
those over whom it is exercised’, is therefore always the immediate aim and
increasing the power of the own state in relation to other actors is the key to
achieve all other political aims (Morgenthau 2006:29–30).
In his seminal work, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, John
Mearsheimer took Morgenthau’s argument one step further, arguing that
great powers do not only strive to be the strongest of all powers, but their
‘ultimate aim is to be the hegemon – that is the only great power in the
system’. Therefore, great powers are ‘rarely content with the current dis
tribution of power’ and ‘almost always have revisionist intentions’, unless
the cost and risks of shifting the balance of power are too great.
Accordingly, there are ‘no status quo powers in the international system
save for the occasional hegemon that wants to maintain its dominating
position’. However, great powers do not only seek to gain power for
themselves but they will also try to ‘thwart rivals bent on gaining power on
their expense’, and if a change in the distribution of power in the system
would favour another state, great powers may also defend the present bal
ance of power (Mearsheimer 2001:2–3).
Offensive realism leaves us with a less conclusive argument regarding great
power strategies. The dominating power, and potential hegemon, obviously
have two alternatives: to go for hegemony or to consolidate its position as
primus inter pares. In later works, Mearsheimer has himself recommended that
the US should pursue a strategy of ‘restrain’ by using its unique geographic
position to act as an off-shore balancer, letting other powers take greater re
sponsibility for their own security and balance each other off (Mearsheimer
2018Mearsheimer and Walt 2016; Mearsheimer 2018). However, if a unipolar
power tries to establish hegemony, an offensive realist would expect the other
great powers to form a counter-balancing coalition similar to the strategies
recommended by defensive realists (Mearsheimer 2001:271). Stephen Walt has
suggested another modification of classical balance of power theories. He ar
gued that the choice to either oppose (balance) or ally (bandwagon) with rising
powers is not only based on statesmen’s assessments of changes in the dis
tribution of power among competing states but also on threat perceptions,
meaning that states will ‘ally with or against the most threatening power’ (Walt
1985:8–9). Walt argued that the perceived level of threat is affected by both
changes in the relative distribution of power and factors related to geographic
proximity, offensive capabilities and perceived intentions. The traditional
balance of power theory should therefore be modified into a ‘balance of threat
theory’ (Walt, 1987:5 and 21–26).
We do not consider it necessary to choose between defensive and offensive
realism. Instead, we view state priorities on this issue as an open empirical
question, assuming that states may weigh these interests differently.
However, we believe that Walt was correct in focusing on perceived threats.
Moreover, we suggest that states – in addition to protecting their survival or
security and maximising their influence and ability to enforce their will upon
others – may have strong interests in gaining recognition of having a certain
relative positional status rank. The three basic interests – security, influence
and status – are not mutually exclusive. Power maximisation may be a way
of protecting the security and survival of the state, and increased influence
over other actors may increase the status rank of a particular state. States
situated in a regional context where they do not perceive any existential
threats may also take survival for granted. This, however, does not mean
that these ‘secure states’ do not care about their survival. What matters in
our empirical analysis is what kind of basic aims the political leadership
prioritises in questions related to the use of their armed forces.
The second dimension in Waltz’s definition concerns functional differ
entiation among interacting parts in the system. In hierarchical systems, the
parts perform different functions. Domestic political systems may have both
different layers of government (central, regional, local), and separation of
competencies horizontally along functional lines (various executive, legis
lative and judiciary branches of government). Domestic political systems are
more or less centralised and have different degrees of separation of powers,
determining the rules of the game for each political system. According to
Waltz, states, as the main units of international systems, are ‘not formally
differentiated by the function they perform’. Moreover, the non-hierarchical
structure of the international system implies a ‘sameness’, and ‘so long as
anarchy endures, states remain like units’. This sameness refers to the fact
that each state is ‘like all other states in being an autonomous political unit’.
Admitting that states vary widely in size, power and form, Waltz specified
this claim: ‘states are alike in the tasks that they face, though not in their
ability to perform them’. Since the lack of differentiation between states
would endure as long as the system remains non-hierarchical, the second
dimension of system characteristics cannot be used to distinguish between
different anarchical systems (Waltz 1979:93 and 95–96). In our view, the
assumption of states being ‘like units’ comes with a high price. Faithfulness
to this assumption prevents scholars from analysing the diversity of real-
world strategic choices made by states. In an article from 1993, Waltz ac
knowledged that states ‘will from their different historical experiences,
geographical locations, and economic interest, interpret events differently
and often prefer different policies’ (Waltz 1993:74).
The third dimension in Waltz’s conceptualisation of the structure of the
international system concerns the distribution of capabilities among the
main competing units. Waltz argued that while analyses of national gov
ernments focus on distinctions, such as parliamentary and presidential
systems, students of international politics, ‘make distinctions between
international-political systems only according to the number of their great
powers’. This dimension makes it possible to differentiate between uni-, bi-,
and different multipolar systems. Identifying the polarity, the researcher
should focus on the relative capacities of the units, not their relations. For
instance, an international system in which three or more powers have split
into two alliances would still be a multipolar system, structurally distinct
from a bipolar system with two dominating powers (Waltz 1979:97–98).
In his analysis of the stability of bi- and multipolar systems, Waltz
claimed that multipolar systems were less stable since the management of
alliances were more complicated, creating situations in which generally de
fensive great powers were forced to enter wars because of their dependence
on more adventurous alliance members. Waltz illustrated this problem with
the failed policies of alliances that proceeded the outbreak of WWI. In bi
polar systems, strategic interdependence declines since the two dominating
powers depend mainly on their own resources and balance each other off
with nationally controlled ‘internal’ means rather than ‘external’ means
(alliances). Moreover, states are less likely to misjudge the relative strength
of individual states than they are to misjudge the strength and credibility of
a coalition of states (Waltz 1979:166–169).
2.1.2 The stability of unipolar systems

Waltz did not extend his analysis of system stability to include a unipolar
system. In Theory of International Politics, he argued that two competing
powers were ‘the smallest number possible in a self-help system’. In an ar
ticle from 2000, he saw an ‘all-but-inevitable movement from unipolarity to
multipolarity’ taking place in Asia, predicting that China, supported by its
strong economic growth rate, would emerge as a great power and develop
second-strike nuclear capacities reaching a level of parity with the US. The
hostility of China, North Korea and Russia, as well as doubts about the
extent to which it can continue to rely on US support, would make Japan
follow China on the route to become a great power. Moreover, the US’s
policy to contain China and its aspiration to ‘keep the world unipolar is
doomed’, since this task would exceed even the US’s power resources.
Additionally, the very effort to maintain a ‘hegemonic position is the surest
way to undermine it […] Multipolarity is developing before our eyes’ (Waltz
1979:136; Waltz 2000:32–37).
Even before Waltz published his prediction, Samuel Huntington had argued
that the unipolar moment already had passed and that the present system
should be conceptualised as a ‘uni-multipolar system’, with one superpower
and several major powers. The US’s relative power position was not as
dominant as we would expect from a unipolar power. To be able to intervene
military in various conflicts, the US was increasingly dependent on active
support from other regional and major powers, and it had to avoid provoking
a veto in the United Nations’ Security Council (UNSC). According to
Huntington, the support for US leadership was shrinking, with the US finding
itself increasingly alone (Huntington 1999). Two decades later, Mearsheimer
argued that the US created liberal international order was ending, and that the
rise of China and the revival of Russian power ‘brought the unipolar era to a
close’. He further predicted that the ‘emerging multipolar world will consist of
a realist based international order’ (Mearsheimer 2019:8).
In an influential article from 1999, William Wohlforth presented a com
prehensive argument questioning ‘the emerging conventional wisdom’ of
unipolar systems being unstable and conflict-prone. Wohlforth’s argument
had three propositions suggesting that the present system is (i) ‘un
ambiguously unipolar’; (ii) ‘prone to peace’; and (iii) ‘durable’. He defined
‘unipolarity’ as ‘a structure in which one state’s capabilities are too great to
be counterbalanced. […] At the same time, capabilities are not so con
centrated as to produce a global empire’. Consequently, unipolar systems
should not be confused with either bi- or multipolar systems that contain
one especially strong state, or imperial systems containing only one major
power (Wohlforth 1999:7–9).
Wohlforth supported the first proposition by comparing the US’s relative
power position to the position of leading states in previous systems. Using
an established power capability index (Correlates of War) and various
quantitative data related to the relative size of the leading power’s economy,
its percentage of military expenditure among major powers and ‘informa
tion age’ capacities, Wohlforth concluded that the extraordinary con
centration of capabilities in the US in the 1990s is unparalleled in modern
history. Unlike previous system leaders, the US has ‘commanding leads in
all the elements of material power’, including all forms of military power. In
previous systems, the leading powers often had ‘asymmetrical power port
folios’ generating ambiguity about the relative power distribution among
major powers (for instance, in comparing land and sea powers). These kind
of asymmetries are absent from the distribution of power in the present
system and efforts by any state to correct this imbalance will take decades.
Moreover, US’s geographic position and friendly neighbourhood further
increase its advantage. All other major powers are located on the Eurasian
continent and have to compete against other major powers in their region
(Wohlforth 1999:10–22 and 28).
The second proposition, the peacefulness of the present system, does not
imply an absence of conflicts. It concerns an absence of two specific pro
blems that have ‘bedevilled’ political leaders in previous systems: hegemonic
rivalry and balance of power politics among major powers. Wohlforth’s
argument on this proposition relates to Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST)
and PTT and their claims that an especially powerful state (a ‘hegemon’ or a
‘dominant state’) foster international orders that are stable until differential
growth rates in power capacities produce a ‘dissatisfied state’ with enough
capabilities to challenge the leading state. Consequently, the larger the
concentration of power in the leading state, the more peaceful the interna
tional order associated with it will be. The key to this argument is that
hegemonic rivalry only occurs in situations when the leading state thinks of
itself as capable of defending the status quo, and dissatisfied states believe
that they are capable of challenging the leading power. The US’s un
precedented strong position, relative to all other major powers, makes such
a challenge highly unlikely.
Additionally, the peacefulness of the unipolar system also finds support in
BPT. Waltz himself suggested that bipolar systems are less war-prone than
multipolar systems because they reduce uncertainties in calculating power
resources. According to this logic, Wohlforth argued that unipolar systems
should be even less war-prone. The superior power capacities of the unipolar
power will leave the ‘second-tier states’ with only two options: to band
wagon with the unipolar power, or isolate itself and avoid ‘actions that
could incur its focused enmity’. Therefore, second-tier states face structural
incentives ‘similar to those of lesser states in a region dominated by one
power, such as North America’. Moreover, the unbalanced unipolar power
can be more interventionist than leader states in bi- or multipolar systems
and maintain a system of alliances creating and exploiting security de
pendencies among second-tier states. Wohlforth, therefore, concluded that
Both HST/PTT and BPT support the claim that a unipolar system generates
‘comparatively few incentives for security or prestige competition among the
great powers’ (Wohlforth 1999:23–26).
Wohlforth’s definition of unipolarity supported the third proposition re
garding the durability of a unipolar system. Since unipolarity is defined as a
structure in which one state’s capabilities are too great to be counterbalanced,
counter-balancing strategies are impossible until the distribution of power
changes. Such a change can occur in three different ways. First, the unipolar
power position may erode due to high ambitions and too many global en
gagements, ‘imperial overstretch’ in the vocabulary of Paul Kennedy
(Kennedy 1989:515), or it may have too limited ambitions when it comes to
developing capabilities and policies necessary to protect the present interna
tional order. Regarding these two scenarios, Wohlforth worried the most
about the latter, that Washington would ‘shrink from accepting the financial,
military, and especially the domestic burdens of sole pole status’ (Wohlforth
1999:39–40). Secondly and thirdly, competing major powers may increase
their national capacities and balance collectively against the unipole.
In analysing the second and third possibility, Wohlforth introduced an
important distinction between a unipolarity in the making and an already
established unipolarity. In the first case, we may, as Waltz did, expect other
major powers to pursue counter-balancing strategies to protect their long-
term political autonomy and survival. However, the sudden implosion of the
Soviet Union resulted in a unique unipolar system with the US as an already
established unipolar power, creating a ‘structural fait accompli’ and a si
tuation in which ‘the theory’s central tendency cannot operate’ (Wohlforth
1999:30). In a later article, Wohlforth developed this argument further, ar
guing that the scope conditions of Waltz’s counter-hegemonic balancing
strategies are no longer obtained. The counter-balancing argument concerns
reactions to ‘a rising power that might attain preponderance, not responses
to a state whose preponderance is already firmly established’. An already
established unipolarity creates a completely different set of incentives for the
less resourceful states and a unipolar system that is both peaceful and
durable. The size and comprehensiveness of the capability cap, together with
the US’s geographical advantages, would block any speedy return to equi
librium through internal efforts by any other state even in a long-term
perspective (Wohlforth 2012:221).
Moreover, for alliances to aggregate power efficiently, they have to be
‘reliably binding and permit the merging of armed forces, defence industries,
infrastructures, and strategic decision making’. Instead of accepting such
limits to their autonomy and dependence on others, states are more likely to
freeride or bandwagon in search of favours from the unipolar power. In the
near term, Wohlforth could only see three possible challengers to the US’s
unipolar position: a true unification of Europe combining Germany’s
economic potential with the military resources of France and the UK, a
recreated Russian empire or an East Asian pole dominated by either China
or Japan. Wohlforth argued that in all three cases, regional balancing dy
namics are likely to kick in, preventing an aspiring superpower from es
tablishing a regional hegemony. Moreover, even as a declining offshore
unipolar power, the US will have unusual wide opportunities to play divide
and rule tactics, as any ‘second-tier state seeking to counter-balance has to
contend with the existing pro-US bandwagon’, and potentially confront
both the unipolar state and its great power ally (Wohlforth 1999:29–34).
In a major effort to update Waltz’s theory of international politics with a
systematic analysis of the dynamics of unipolar systems, Nuno Monteiro
suggested a third possibility: that the present unipolar system is durable, but
not peaceful. Moreover, the durability of the system is highly dependent on
the strategies of the unipolar power towards other major powers. If the
unipole accommodates the continuing economic growth of rising powers
possessing nuclear weapons as a defensive deterrent, the rising powers will
have fewer incentives to strengthen their military capacities beyond the point
they need for their survival. Eventually, the rising powers may become a
‘satisfied status quo military power’. Regarding peacefulness, Monteiro ar
gued that unipolarity makes room for significant conflict beyond open conflict
among great powers. The unbalanced power of the unipole generates
‘abundant opportunities’ for wars between the unipole and minor powers
lacking both capabilities and allies to deter the unipole from attacking.
Unipolarity also creates opportunities for conflicts among minor powers that
may have been avoided if they had been disciplined by a great power ally
protecting the regional balance of power. Moreover, the maintenance of the
status quo requires that the unipole practices a strategy of ‘defensive dom
inance’, including selective but regular military involvement in conflicts to
lower the incentives for regional arms races (Monteiro 2014:4–6).
The disagreement among structural realists indicates in our view that BPT
will not be able to provide one answer to the question of the durability or
peacefulness of unipolar systems. However, all participants in the debate on
the unipolar moment seem to admit that the durability and peacefulness of
the system are partly dependent on the strategic choices of the leading
powers. Monteiro even argued that the grand strategy of the unipolar power
is the ‘most important variable’, conditioning both the durability and
peacefulness of the system (Monteiro 2014:63). Still, the parsimonious
analytical framework originally developed by Waltz provide us with little or
no guidance as to why states pursue different strategies, and his assumption
that states are like units does not help us. However, Monteiro’s distinction
between satisfied powers supporting the system and rising powers challen
ging the system is an important step forward in this regard. In contrast to
most structural realists, Monteiro explicitly addressed the question of dif
ferences arguing that the ‘different behaviour of states is determined by the
different positions they occupy in the international context, which in turn
are determined by their relative power and the strategic relations they have
with the unipole’ (Monteiro 2014:36). In the next section, we discuss two
theoretical perspectives that are better suited for the task of explaining why
states pursue different strategies: power transition theory and research on
status competition.
2.2 System stability and great power interaction processes

In this section, we first introduce PTT. This theory is particularly useful for
analysing the dynamics of unipolar systems since its basic conception of the
international system includes one dominating state interacting with the two
different categories of states: satisfied and dissatisfied states. In the following
subsection, we also introduce research on status competition. This set of
research act as a complement to PTT in analysing how states different po
sition in the present system will affect their basic strategic choices. Finally,
we conclude this section by presenting our conceptualisation of the dis
tribution of power in the present international system.
2.2.1 Basic premises of power transition theory

The IR debate on hegemonic stability has its roots in competing views on the
consequences of the US’s relative economic decline in the 1970s. According
to proponents of the HST, international orders such as the Bretton Woods
system require active efforts and continuous support by the leading state, the
‘hegemon’, who fulfils a critical function in creating a specific regime and
enforcing the norms and rules of the cooperation.5 In this debate, realist
scholars, such as Robert Gilpin (1987), and liberal theorists, such as Robert
Keohane, reached different conclusions, with Keohane arguing that the
regime could survive without the active support from the leading state since
other states also benefited from the cooperation and therefore would con
tinue to support it (Keohane 1984). The logic of hegemonic stability is not
restricted to economic cooperation. In War and Change in World Politics,
Gilpin extended the analysis of hegemonic stability to security orders. In
both cases, states accept the leadership of a ‘benign hegemon’ because they
believe that they benefit from the collective good provided by the hegemon
(Gilpin 1981).
PTT complements the HST debate by adding the distinction between
satisfied and dissatisfied states. This distinction, present in both Wolhforth’s
and Monteiro’s argument, is of particular interest for this study since our
selection of cases includes two potentially satisfied great powers (France and
the UK) and two potentially dissatisfied great powers (China and Russia).
PTT was originally developed by Abramo Fimo Kenneth Organski in his
study World Politics (1968). The theory’s focus on the dynamics of inter
national systems dominated by one state has earned it renewed attention in
analyses of the post-Cold War era (Tammen et al. 2000; Lemke 2004). In
contrast to the previously discussed assumption of states being like units,
PTT describes a layered hierarchical state system. At the top of the system
sits the ‘dominant state’, which controls the largest proportions of relevant
power resources within the system. However, the dominant state is not a
hegemon in the strong sense of the word, and the system is still anarchical in
the terminology of Waltz. It is composed of formally sovereign units, and
the dominating state cannot single-handedly control the actions of other
major powers. Instead, its position rests on its power preponderance over
potential rivals and its ability to manage the international system in ways
that benefit its allies and satisfy their interests (Tammen et al. 2000:6).
Directly beneath the dominant state, we find the category of great powers.
This category is inhabited by two kinds of powers: (i) satisfied powers,
whose function in the system is to contribute to the allocation of resources
and to assist the dominant state in maintaining the system; and (ii) dis
satisfied powers, which are not fully integrated into the norms and rules of a
particular system. Potential challengers to the dominant power come from
the latter category. According to PTT, a potential challenger must have 80
per cent or more of the dominant power’s resources. Like Morgenthau and
many other realist scholars, Tammen and his colleagues define power as ‘the
ability to impose on or persuade an opponent to comply with demands’.
Measuring power, PTT uses a combination of three indicators: population
size, economic productivity and the effectiveness of the political system in
extracting resources to advance national goals (Tammen et al. 2000:7–8).
Presently, according to Tammen and his colleagues, China represents the
sole potential challenger to the US. This is contingent on if China remains
dissatisfied with its place and role in the present system. The three other
great powers in the present system are Germany, or the European Union
(EU), Japan and Russia (‘assuming recovery’). ‘In the distant future’, India
may also rise to great power status and even become a challenger to the then
dominating state. Beneath the great powers, we find the more numerous
category of middle powers, who are characterised by the fact that they in
dividually have ‘resources that cannot be dismissed’, but still ‘insufficient
powers to challenge the dominant power’. Finally, at the bottom of the
pyramid resides the most numerous category of states, the small powers,
with few resources even compared to middle powers. A similar hierarchy is
also assumed to exist in subordinated regional systems, with their own set of
dominant, great and lesser powers (Tammen et al. 2000:7–8).
According to PTT, the prime motivating factor for decisions on war and
peace is countries’ relative satisfaction with the rules of the global or re
gional hierarchy and a ‘desire of a nation to improve its political position in
the hierarchy’. Consequently, dissatisfied states are potential challengers to
the status quo. So far, PTT relates closely to the premises of offensive
realism. However, PTT also claims that conflicts ‘do not occur frequently at
the great power level’. The reason for this is that most of these states are
relatively satisfied; they support the existing rules of the present system, and
‘seek cooperative solutions’ to enhance national interests related to both the
economy and security. The assumption that some great powers will accept
the leadership of a dominating power thereby becoming status quo powers
bandwagoning with the dominating power, is incompatible with the as
sumptions of both defensive and offensive realism. However, all states are
not equally satisfied. PTT expects that there are a few dissatisfied states at
the top of the system and an increasing number of dissatisfied states in the
lower categories. These states believe that the present international system
does not confer benefits equal to their expectations or long-term interests.
Instead, they see the system as unfair, biased and dominated by hostile
forces. The specific rationale for their grievances may differ; it can be his
torical (Germany prior WWII), cultural (China), ideological (USSR), re
ligious (Iran) or even personal (Libya and Iraq) (Tammen et al. 2000:9).
Another difference between structural realism and PTT concerns the
analysis of the stability of alliances. In traditional realist theory, alliances
reflect the interests of their leading power(s) and are held together by the
fear of common enemies. Contrary to this, PTT argues that the stability of
alliances reflects the ‘similarity of interests and the degree of agreement
about the status quo among allies’. While states with similar preferences will
form stable alliances, alliances that include states with incompatible pre
ferences on the existing order are likely to be broken when the common
threat has disappeared. NATO is an example of the former, and the alliances
between the Western powers and the USSR during WWII an example of the
latter (Tammen et al. 2000:13).
Contrasting PTT and offensive realism, Douglas Lemke presented an
analysis of the interaction processes between the US and the great powers of
the post-Cold war era. Following the basic premises of offensive realism, we
should expect the unipolar power to continue its struggle for more power
until it has established itself as a hegemon by eliminating rivals, or otherwise
subjugating them. Great powers are expected, if possible, to pass the buck of
deterring aggression to other great powers. However, the more powerful the
dominant state is relative to its foes, the more likely it is that the other states
respond by forming coalitions to balance the threat from the dominating
state. Bandwagoning is, in the perspective of offensive realism, the least
likely alignment strategy of great powers since it would contradict the as
sumption of states being driven by ambitions to maximise power (Lemke
2004:53–55).
PTT predicts the opposite strategic behaviour. The US has in this per
spective been the dominant power ever since the end of WWII when it
founded the international institutional structure relating to the UN system,
as well as the financial institutions of the Bretton Woods system and the
infrastructure that support a global free trade market (capital markets, stock
exchanges and communication networks). These institutions provide ‘re
sources (capital, credit and relief from trade disputes) disproportionately to
states that organize their domestic economies following American concepts
of market capitalism, free trade, and respect for liberal democratic norms of
conduct and human rights’ (Lemke 2004:56). Lemke argued that as the
dominant power, the US is the main status quo power and the first defender
of this system. Some other states will also benefit from this system, but
others will not. The more similar a state’s domestic institutions are to those
of the dominant power, the more likely the state is to benefit from the status
quo, benefits that will also increase the likelihood of this particular state
being a ‘satisfied state’. And conversely, the more different a state’s domestic
institutions are from the dominant state, the more likely it is that the state
will not benefit from the system and therefore becomes a dissatisfied state
wanting to challenge the status quo (Lemke 2004:56).
According to the main hypothesis of PTT, the probability of war between
the dominant state and other major powers rises dramatically when a dis
satisfied power achieves parity with the dominant power. However, a parity
between a rising satisfied power and the dominant power is not likely to lead
to war if the new dominant power maintains the status quo instituted by the
former dominant state (Lemke 2004:57). The US replacing the UK as the
dominant power during the twentieth century may be interpreted as an
example of a peaceful succession between two like-minded satisfied domi
nant states. Another claim that can be drawn from the basic assumptions of
PTT is that the preponderance of power at the hands of the dominant state
promotes the stability of the system. Again, the predictions of PTT stand in
sharp contrast to the predictions of Waltz’s theory of the international
system. However, the predictions are fully compatible with the arguments on
unipolarity put forth by Wohlforth and Monteiro. Moreover, in contrast to
Waltz’s defensive realism and offensive realists such as Mearsheimer, PTT
also suggests that satisfied states will neither balance nor buck-pass in efforts
to constrain rising satisfied states (Lemke 2004:57).
According to Lemke, the great power strategies of the post-Cold War era
generally confirmed the expectations of PTT and disconfirmed the ex
pectations of offensive realism. Regarding the dominating state, Lemke
argued that the active policies of the US corresponded well with the ex
pectations of a dominant state, exercising influence with consent through
multilateral institutions and, mostly, active support from other satisfied
major powers (Lemke 2004:63–64). Regarding the strategic responses from
other major powers, the UK has consistently supported the US and fought
alongside the Americans in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and twice in Iraq.
Thus, practising a strategy of bandwagoning through building on its special
relationship with the dominant power. Moreover, the UK has not under
taken any major military build-ups to balance the US by internal efforts and
it has remained in NATO. France participated in the US-led coalitions in
Iraq (1991), sent naval units to support the US’s war efforts in Afghanistan
and has increased its ties to NATO in the post-Cold War era. However,
France has also been a leader in efforts to develop independent European
military capacities in the form of the so-called European Rapid Reaction
Force, and it has been increasingly critical of US foreign policy, especially
with respect to the war against Iraq 2003. Lemke, therefore, argued that it
cannot be said that France ‘wholeheartedly bandwagons’ with the US.
However, neither does it balance nor buck-pass US preponderance (Lemke
2004:59–61).6 Since both Germany and Japan are still cooperating closely
with the US in questions related to territorial defence, Lemke found support
for classifying both countries’ alignment strategies as bandwagoning to
wards the US (Lemke 2004:61–62).7
Turning to the first of the two potentially dissatisfied states, Lemke noted
that China has not sent military contributions to any post-Cold War US
operation, it abstained in the UNSC vote authorising the first War in Iraq
1991, it bitterly opposed NATO actions against Yugoslavia in 1999 and
threatened to veto the use of force against Iraq in 2003. Moreover, the
Chinese military has been ‘undergoing restructuring and augmentation,
featuring acquisition of new generations of fighter aircraft and warships’,
and its government ‘regularly express dissatisfaction with American hege
mony’. According to Lemke, in addition to its internal balancing efforts,
China explored the possibility of constructing a counter-balancing coalition
with Russia. Lemke admitted that the balancing behaviour of China is
consistent with the dictates of offensive realism. However, it also fits well
with PTT’s expectations regarding dissatisfied states. Russia, on the other
hand, did not match the characteristics of a dissatisfied state in the analysis
of Lemke. Impressed with the then intensive US economic support to
Russia, Russia’s cooperation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
and its membership in the Group of Eight (G8), Lemke classified Russia as
bandwagoning with the US (Lemke 2004:61–62).
Since Lemke presented his arguments, Russia has been expelled from the
G8, invaded two neighbouring countries (Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in
2014), provided military support to the Assad government in Syria in its war
against US allies and is accused of interfering in two American presidential
elections (2016 and 2020). Additionally, the Russian government has in
vested heavily in modernising and increasing its military capacities and is
openly challenging liberal values, decreasing political freedom within Russia
and supporting non-liberal parties abroad. We argue that Russia, from 2008
onwards, fits well with the expectations of both offensive realism and dis
satisfied states in PTT.
As already mentioned, we view PTT’s distinctions between the dominant
state and other states as well as satisfied and dissatisfied states, as potentially
useful in analysing differences in strategic behaviour. However, we do not
agree with the choice of indicators for measuring power or the selection of
great powers. Tammen and his colleagues admitted that the population’s
size does not tell us much as an isolated variable. If it did, countries like
Bangladesh, Indonesia and Brazil would also be considered great powers
(Tammen et al. 2000:9). We also find it difficult to operationalise PTT’s third
indicator, ‘the effectiveness of the political system’, and considering
economic strength, we think that productivity should be complemented with
the size of each state’s economy. Regarding the selection of great powers, we
also note that PTT theorists find it hard to agree even among themselves;
Tammen and his colleagues excluded the UK and France from the great
power category, while Lemke included them. Moreover, PTT’s discussion
on satisfied and dissatisfied powers is biased towards international political-
economic considerations. Since our dependent variable is defence and
military strategies, we will complement PTT’s analysis of attitudes towards
the status quo with motives related to status competition and positional
conflicts related to the use of military force.
2.2.2 Status competition

Status is a relational variable based on mutually recognised differences in
status among members of a particular system or organisation. Recognition
by other states as having a special status may increase a particular state’s
political capital and give it access to exclusive decision-making forums. In
the present state system, recognition includes ideas of each state having
equal formal rights to sovereignty, procedures of diplomatic representation
and collective recognition by peers acknowledged as membership and re
presentation in the United Nations (UN) or organisations such as the Group
of Seven (G7) and Group of Twenty (G20). Interest in states’ competition
for status and recognition is not novel. During the Cold War, some re
searchers belonging to the ‘English school’ emphasised this aspect of power
competition in their analyses and definitions of great powers and less re
sourceful states (Bull 1977:200–202; Holbraad 1984:75–76; Wight
1986:41–43 and 96–98). In a classical study from 1977, The Anarchical
Society, Hedley Bull, a leading representative of the English School, argued
that great powers are in the front rank in military strength. Additionally,
great powers are recognised by both their own leaders and people as well as
other states to have ‘certain special rights and duties’. Foremost, they assert
the right to ‘play a part in determining issues that affect the peace and se
curity of the international system as a whole’ (Bull 1977:202).
The insights of the English School regarding status competition were lost
in the theoretical debates within the IR discipline in the 1980s and the early
1990s.8 However, during the last years of the 1990s and the first two decades
of the twenty-first century, the interest for status has resurged, resulting in a
celebrated edited volume with the title Status in World Politics. In the in
troduction to the book, Deborah Welch Larson and her colleagues defined
status as ‘collective beliefs about a given state’s ranking on valued attri
butes’. Status, they argued, manifests itself in two distinct ways: as mem
bership in a defined club of actors and as a relative standing within a
particular club. Membership in ‘international society’ – recognised sover
eignty – is a status sought by many sub-state groups and once this status is
conferred via recognition by others, the new states may continue to improve
their relative position further by advancing to middle power status.
Ultimately, states may seek entrance to the highest status group – the great
power club – and continue to compete for the ‘less formal rankings’ within
this group (Larson et al., 2014:7–8).9
Whether it concerns membership in a specific club or informal positioning
within the ‘social hierarchy’, status involves both shared collective beliefs
and judgements related to the relative ranking of club members and sub
jective perceptions related to estimations of different countries’ power ca
pacities. Relative ranking implies a view of status as a ‘positional good’, a
scarce resource that cannot be enjoyed by everyone. However, while status is
always relational, it is not necessary zero-sum. Sub-state groups can, and
have been allowed to, enter the society of states without diminishing the
status of other states, and single middle powers can rise to great power
status without diminishing the status of other members of the great power
club (Larson et al. 2014:8–9).
The question of status as a ‘positional good’, based on both collective
beliefs and subjective estimations has been analysed further by other re
searchers. In an article on growth and positional conflicts, Randall Schweller
argued that positional competition – in contrast to some other efforts related
to security – is a zero-sum game. In these matters, ‘a gain (loss) for one
player becomes a corresponding loss (gain) for the opponent(s)’. Schweller
also identified ‘an especially virulent’ subset of positional competitions;
‘positional conflicts’. In these conflicts, at least one of the parties seeks the
‘total destruction or subjugation’ of the other, and bargaining and com
promises are impossible. Examples of this are contemporary civil wars as
well as ethnic and religious conflicts (Schweller 1999:29).
The subjective character of estimations of power capacities creates a risk
of states experiencing ‘status inconsistency’ – that a state receives mixed
signals from other states regarding its relative position, or that a state per
ceives itself to be worthy of a higher rank than other states are prepared to
recognise. In an article on polarity and status competition, Wohlforth ar
gued that status inconsistency is more likely to trigger open status compe
tition when the power capabilities of states are evenly matched. Uneven
‘capability portfolios – when states excel in different material dimension –
make status inconsistency more likely’. Putting these two propositions to
gether, he concluded that unipolar systems characterised by one state
‘possessing unambiguous preponderance’ in all relevant dimension of power
capabilities are the systems that are the least prone to power competition
(Wohlforth 2011:45–47).
In our view, the renewed attention to status competition constitutes an
important complement to the previous structural realist focus on the dis
tribution of material power capabilities. As previously mentioned, we also
consider that recognition of status rank constitutes a third possible basic
goal as it complements defensive realism’s emphasis on survival/security and
offensive realism’s assumptions regarding power maximisation and
increased influence. We agree with the argument that more states can enter a
certain category without diminishing the status of the states already be
longing to this category. Allowing new members to enter a particular group
might even strengthen the group collectively. A rising number of states being
allowed to enter a group of, for example, middle powers, may improve the
influence and standing of the whole group if they can coordinate their ac
tions toward other categories of states.
However, when we turn to the category of system-determining states, this
line of reasoning becomes complicated. Increasing the number of first
ranked great powers changes the structure of the system, turning a unipolar
system into a bipolar system or a bipolar system into a multipolar system.
This change would diminish the relative position of the unipolar or bipolar
powers respectively, and improve the relative position of the rising power.
Moreover, as members of the top category of states, system-determining
states have less need for coordinating their actions when they interact with
states from lower categories. Furthermore, we agree with Schweller’s ar
gument that status competition involves a struggle for positional goods in
volving relative gains and losses. Wohlforth may be correct in claiming that
status inconsistencies are less likely to occur in unipolar systems, with one
state having a huge advantage in terms of access to all relevant power ca
pacities. However, this distribution of power does not prevent the secondary
powers from competing among themselves to improve their relative status
position against each other. Moreover, if the unipolar power practices iso
lationist strategies or strategies of offshore balancing, potential revisionist
states are left under-deterred and status competition is likely to increase
among the secondary great powers.
With a traditional focus on the distribution of material power capacities,
states can only improve their position in two ways: by increasing their na
tional capacities (internal balancing vis-à-vis other states) or by coordinating
their efforts with other states through military alliances or otherwise (ex
ternal balancing). If we extend the analysis to status competition, several
additional strategic possibilities emerge. With a departure in Social Identity
Theory (SIT), Deborah Welch Larson and Alexei Shevchenko identified
three different strategies for states (or other groups or individuals) to im
prove their social status. If the boundaries to higher status groups are seen
as ‘permeable’, a lower status group opt for a strategy of conforming to the
norms of the elite group to gain acceptance, and practice a strategy of ‘social
mobility’. Germany and Japan’s integration into the Western community
after WWII provide us with examples of this first strategy. According to
Larson and Shevchenko, both China and Russia tried to practice this
strategy in the early post-Cold War era. However, if the boundaries to
higher-ranking states are perceived to be ‘impermeable’ to new members,
states may instead opt for strategies of social competition and develop
strategies that challenge the values of the present system and the established
great powers. Similarly, Larson and Shevchenko exemplified Japan’s
imperialism in the 1930s and Russia’s re-orientation in the late 1990s and
early 2000s as historical illustrations of this. A third strategy is ‘social
creativity’. For states pursuing this strategy, the present status hierarchy is
perceived as stable and difficult to challenge. Instead of trying to excel in
capacities that other states have an advantage in, states practising this
strategy try to excel in other dimensions by promoting new norms that can
change how status is perceived. The status competition between the US and
the EU was offered as one example of this (Larson and Shevchenko 2010).
The insights from research on status competition will be used in two ways
in this study. First, we view the improvement of status as a third possible
basic goal, common to both the defence strategy and the military strategy, of
a specific country. This means that military capacities may be developed and
used to promote three interrelated but not identical purposes: (i) survival/
security; (ii) power maximisation/influence; and (iii) maintaining/increasing
status rank. Second, the strategies of social mobility, social competition and
social creativity will be used to analyse the strategies that different states use
to consolidate or improve their status rank.
2.2.3 The distribution of power in the present international system

Our analysis of the distribution of power in the present international system
departs from a distinction between superpowers and great powers in
troduced by Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver. Superpowers must, according to
their definition, ‘possess first-class military-political capabilities (as mea
sured by the standards of the day), and the economies to support such
capabilities’. Moreover, superpowers have to exercise ‘global military and
political reach’. Furthermore, they must both identify themselves as a su
perpower and ‘be accepted by others in rhetoric and behaviour, as having
this rank’. Finally, a superpower needs to be an active player in processes of
security agenda setting in all, or nearly all, of the regions in the system.
According to Buzan and Wæver, the US is the only superpower in the post-
Cold War era. Great power status, they argued, ‘rest mainly on a single key’:
that other ‘major powers’ include them in their system-level calculations as if
they have ‘the clear economic, military, and political potential to bid for the
superpower status in the short or medium term’. The ‘actual possession of
material and legal attributes’, they argued, is less crucial for great powers
than for superpowers. However, great powers ‘will usually have appropriate
levels of capability […] they will generally think of themselves as more than
regional powers and possibly as prospective superpowers, and they will
usually be capable of operating in more than one region’ (Buzan and Wæver
2003:34–35).
The distinction between superpowers and great powers is in our view
fruitful since it offers an opportunity for distinguishing changes in the in
ternational system that are of less significance than a change in the funda
mental polarity (if a system is uni-, bi- or multipolar). We agree with Buzan
and Wæver regarding the importance of the mutual recognition of status.
However, whether or not other ‘major powers’ include a particular potential
great power in their system-level calculations cannot be answered until it is
decided which states are included in this category. Consequently, we do not
consider recognition of superpower potential among major powers to be a
useful criterion for identifying great powers. Moreover, since our category
of system-determining states includes both superpowers and great powers,
we see no need to exclude states that are not perceived as potential super
powers from the category of great powers. Furthermore, since the dependent
variable of this study is alignment and military strategies, we consider it
necessary that both superpowers and great powers meet certain criteria re
garding the possession of both material and legal attributes. Without ma
terial capabilities, these states will not be able to pursue and sustain military
strategies corresponding to great powers. Without formal legal attributes,
such as formally recognised rights and membership in relevant decision-
making institutions, these powers will not be able to use their status in
various institutional settings. In this study, the veto-right and permanent
membership in the UNSC are obvious examples of this.
Stephen Brooks and William Wohlforth developed Buzan and Wæver’s
distinction between superpowers and great powers further. In an article and
a book from 2016, they argued that the rise of China has turned the inter
national system of the 1990s with one superpower and an unspecified
number of great powers (a ‘1+X structure’), into a system with a ‘1+1+X’
structure.10 According to this conceptualisation of the international system,
the US is still the sole superpower, but China’s increasing economic strength
has made it advance into an ‘emerging potential superpower’. The letter X is
used to signify that a change in the number of great powers does not alter
the basic properties of the system (Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a).11 In their
analysis of the distribution of power, Brooks and Wohlforth focused on
three interacting ‘core elements of material power’: military capacity, eco
nomic capacity and technological capacity (Brooks and Wohlforth
2016a:16). Data on the differences in aggregate capabilities between major
powers were used to create several hierarchically ordered subcategories
(superpowers, potential superpowers and great powers), and to make esti
mations regarding the time needed for a specific state to advance to a higher
category.
The standard approach to measuring the distribution of military power
focuses on annual defence expenditures. According to Brooks and
Wohlforth, this standard approach has significant limitations. One such
limitation concerns the temporal aspect of analysing the build-up of new
military capacities. Brooks and Wohlforth argued that the length of the time
gap that separates the choice to attain some capability and the creation of
that capability is potentially very long, and depends on the level of tech
nological development of the specific country as well as its ability to convert
economic and technological power elements to new military capabilities.
The increased complexity in producing and using advanced weaponry has
increased this interdependency between the different core elements of power.
Furthermore, investments in defence spending accumulate over decades,
making a change from one year to another less significant (Brooks and
Wohlforth 2016a:17–19).
According to Brooks and Wohlforth, assessments of the military power of
superpowers and potential superpowers should include an analysis of the
key military capacities needed to exercise ‘command of the global commons’
(the open sea, space and air above 15,000 feet).12 Exercising command of the
commons in the twenty-first century, states require a broad range of very
expensive and complex systems that have to be integrated and supported by
an infrastructure that includes long-range transport capacity and military
installations in foreign countries. After summarising the total resources for
global power projection among six major powers (China, France, India,
Russia, the UK and the US), Brooks and Wohlforth estimated that the US-
controlled more than 50 per cent of all indicators of command of the
commons, leaving China and the other majorpowers very far behind
(Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a:20–21).
Regarding economic capacities, Brooks and Wohlforth admitted that
China’s share of the global gross domestic product (GDP) had grown dra
matically from 4.5 per cent in 2000 to 11.3 in 2014 and that China had made
a remarkable sprint to reach middle-income status. However, they con
tinued, China would face a more difficult challenge of moving to high-
income status. Most countries fail this step, and among those states that
succeed, slower growth rates are usually experienced as their economy ad
vances (Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a:26–28; for a similar argument, see Nye
2012; 2015). Moreover, to reach the level of ‘potential superpower’, China
must also develop technological capacities to challenge the US in the mili
tary realm. Increased technological capacities would give China sufficient
‘latent material capacity’ to bid for superpower status. However, before
China can reach the level of superpower rank, it must convert this latent
capacity to military resources. This is needed for commanding the global
commons, a final step that in itself is likely to take decades.
We use Brooks and Wohlforth’s conceptualisation of the current interna
tional system’s structure when defining the level of system-determining states
and when separating great powers from middle powers. However, Brooks and
Wohlforth did not present any specific criteria for great powers; neither did they
specify what states occupy this level in the present international system.
However, in their analysis of global power projection they identified six ‘major
powers’, the five states we categorise as the system-determining states and India.
If our focus had been on economic power and strategies for influence in the
global economy, it could have been reasonable to view the EU as a great power.
After all, the EU is a member of the G20 and the Commission of the EU has the
mandate to represent all Union members in international trade negotiations.
However, when it comes to issues related to defence policy, the member states
have so far been reluctant to cede formal decision-making authority to common
supranational institutions or establishing common military capacities.13
Our selection of system-determining states is based on aggregate cap
abilities related to three dimensions: (i) economic capacity (measured as
annual GDP and GDP per capita); (ii) military capabilities (accumulated
military expenditure and access to nuclear weapons); and (iii) recognition of
status (permanent membership in UNSC and membership in G7). To meet
the criteria for system-determining states, a state must score high on at least
two out of three indicators.
In ranking the economic capabilities among the six major powers identified
by Brooks and Wohlforth, we combine GDP and GDP per capita to get an
approximation of both the raw size of each country’s economy and its level of
development (see Table 2.1). A combined evaluation of annual GDP and GDP
per capita gives the US a clear advantage over all other states. China’s huge
advantage in size to the other major powers makes it reasonable to see China
as being in a class of its own, second to the US, but clearly ahead of France
and the UK. The size of India’s economy is equal to Britain’s and France’s, but
its GDP per capita is far below even Russia’s. Russia, on the other hand, has
the smallest economy. India’s huge population gives it enormous growth po
tential. However, in this study, we are concerned with the distribution of power
in the present international system, not the number of great powers in future
systems. Looking at the size and the level of development of India’s economy
at the present, it is clearly behind France and the UK.
Table 2.1 Indicators of the economic capabilities of six potential system-determining

powers 2020
Country GDP (billion USD) GDP per capita (USD)
The US 21,433 65,254

China 14,401 10,287
India 2,869 2,098
The UK 2,831 42,379
France 2,716 39,257
Russia 1,702 11,601
Source: International Monetary Fund.
Concerning military capacities, we are also interested in both quantity and

quality. Regarding the first, we have aggregated data on the annual average
military expenditure of over ten years to compensate for short time fluc
tuations and to get a more comprehensive picture (see Table 2.2). Again, the
US is clearly in a class of its own, followed by China in second place. When
it comes to military expenditure, the other four major powers are roughly
equal. However, following Brooks and Wohlforth’s argument concerning
‘key military capacities’ to exercise ‘command of the global commons’
(Brooks and Wohlforth 2016a:20–21), we also consider a qualitative
dimension of military capacities. Since even some potential great powers
have very limited ability for global power projection in the post-Cold War
era, we will not use Brooks and Wohlforth’s indicators of superpower
capabilities. Instead, we see access to nuclear weapons and second-strike
capability as two key military capacities of great powers. As for indicators of
second-strike capabilities, we use access to nuclear-powered ballistic missile
submarines (SSBN) and the number of deployed warheads (as a protection
against surprise attacks).
Table 2.2 Indicator of the military capability of six potential system-determining powers
Country Accumulated military expenditures 2010–2019 (billion USD)
The US 6,877
China 1,956
Russia 712
India 551
The UK 540
France 505
Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
Access to nuclear weapons is important both as a defensive deterrent and

as a source of recognition of status. We will therefore use access to nuclear
weapons as a necessary criterion in identifying great powers, and for se
parating this class of states from middle powers. In the early debate on
unipolarity, one participant expected that Germany and Japan soon would
make moves to acquire ‘a full spectrum of great power capabilities, in
cluding nuclear weapons’ (Layne 1993:33–37). Another researcher argued
that a multipolar Europe would be more stable if Germany was allowed to
acquire a nuclear deterrent (Mearsheimer 1990:55). So far, these two states
have not made any efforts to procure nuclear weapons and they are there
fore not included in the category of system-determining states. However,
and in contrast to Monteiro (2014:46), we do not view access to nuclear
weapons as a sufficient criterion for great power rank or a single key to
major power status, since that would force us to include Israel, North Korea
and Pakistan in the category of major powers. Adding nuclear weapons and
second-strike capability to the equation changes the picture based on just
military expenditure. On this parameter, Russia is almost equal to the US,
placing these two states in a class of their own. However, considering the
US’s huge advantage in defence expenditure and capacities for global power
projection, Russia is still clearly behind the US when we combine conven
tional and nuclear military capacities. France and the UK are the only
states, besides Russia and the US, to fulfil both criteria for second-strike
capability. Russia’s huge advantage when it comes to nuclear capacities
makes us rank France and the UK as third-ranked military powers. China’s
efforts to introduce submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM) seem to
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
bow-wow,” at least they are “high notes” in one sense, and may find
an echo in the hearts of those who love the mountains.
An Alpine Letter
1892
Saas Fée—Grimsel Pass—Mountain sickness—A tired lady on the Matterhorn—
Ascent of the Matterhorn—Ascent of the Ober-Gabelhorn—The Trift Joch from
Zermatt to Zinal—The Concordia Hut—The Jungfrau—The Lötschen Lücke—
Mr. Nettleship’s death on Mont Blanc—Beaten by bad weather on the Dru—
The disaster at St. Gervais—Neuchâtel to Bâle.
“In all my wanderings round this world of care” I have found few
places so free from the black canker as the mountain tops. Let the
climber carry out a burden as big as was Christian’s in the Pilgrim’s
Progress, he leaves it all behind upon the high peaks. If Mr.
Gladstone could only have managed to attain to the summit of
Snowdon he might have seen more than the coast of Ireland.
Truly it may be said that the outside of a mountain is good for the
inside of a man. So once again I take my holidays upon the Alps,
and will hope that the following account may interest readers who
travel, for these like to be reminded of beautiful places they have
visited, and those who stay at home may be encouraged to try the
mountains abroad.
In order to avoid the hot part of the Rhone Valley, and to reach
Saas Fée, our first halting place, by an interesting route, my wife and
I took the train for Lucerne—by way of Calais, Rheims, Laon, and
Bâle. This journey takes less than a day. Starting from London at 11
a.m. we found ourselves the following morning in a boat on the blue
Lake of Lucerne with the mountains around us. Travelling by rail over
the Brünig Pass, which we had crossed on foot ten years before, we
reminded each other of a long walk from Meiringen to Lauterbrunnen
in one day, over the Greater and the Lesser Sheidecks when our
porter over-ate himself at Grindelwald, about midway, and nearly
collapsed at the end of the journey, turning very white and sick in the
steep descent to Lauterbrunnen. We came to Meiringen, still chiefly
in ruins from the recent fire. The hot, strong Föhn wind blowing from
the south is the cause of these awful fires, it will both start and
spread the flames. For miles round Meiringen there are notices
forbidding smoking in the open road when this wind is blowing. From
this sad spot by easy roads we came to Guttannen and here spent
the night, rising early next morning for a walk over the Grimsel Pass,
with a man to carry our light luggage.
The first early morning walk in Switzerland is always delicious, and
wipes away the discomfort of the journey out. We stayed at Handeck
to look at the finest waterfall in the country. Two converging torrents,
“with a mighty uproar,” pour their waters into an unfathomable,
mysterious abyss, hidden by clouds of spray, where a rainbow
arches in the sun.
As we walk up the pass, which has been described as a
“sepulchre unburied by the sun,” there are, on either hand,
enormous, dark, smoothly rounded rocks, the evidence of glacier
action in the ages gone. The Grimsel Hospice is situated in the most
savage rock scenery, and is not improved by containing a piano,
electric bells, and a smart waiter in dress clothes. However, I made
use of their telegraph to order a mule from Saas Fée to meet us at
Stalden for my wife to ride up there. All the crooked places are now
being made plain by means of telegraphs and railways!
A great new road is in process of making over this pass, and as
we reached the summit, the blasting operations were heard in many
explosions; each was at first like the pop of a champagne cork, but
after a pause came a tremendous thundering echo from all the
mountains around. We left the Rhone glacier on our left hand, and
descended to Obergestelen in the upper part of the Rhone valley,
taking there a carriage to Brieg. The sensations are delightful on a
sunny day, when, after some hours’ walking in bleak, bare, rock
wilderness, you come down into a green and fertile valley; the effect
of the keen fresh air is still with you as you drive along among the
trees and flowers in the sun, and you are cheered with a sense of
well-being in the present and the future. Here you “cannot see the
smiling earth and think there’s hell hereafter.” A night was spent at
Brieg and then a short journey by rail to Visp and up to Stalden, from
whence I followed my wife’s mule to Fée. After spending a few days
in comfortable quarters there I left to make some expeditions.
My climbing friend, A. B., was at the Eggishorn Hotel, and had just
made the ascent of the Finsteraarhorn, the highest peak of the
Oberland, whereupon he had been taken with mountain-sickness,
and made his ascent with some difficulty, his guide helping him on
and holding his head occasionally while he vomited. His trouble was,
probably, caused by his going too fast up his first peak, for, though
accustomed to the mountains, he had only been out from England a
few days of this season. This interesting malady is well described in
Whymper’s travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator; both
himself and his men suffered from headache and fever, but the
conditions were very different from what obtains on our mountains;
the highest point is here only 15,700 feet (Mont Blanc), compared
with over 20,000 on Chimborazo. All exertion seems more severe at
great heights, and though in Europe mountain-sickness is rare, there
are few climbers who have not felt at 14,000 feet a sense of
breathlessness if going upwards at any great pace. It is often hard to
distinguish it from mere fatigue, and I do not think that guides would
acknowledge it in themselves; but for myself I have had the feeling,
and “thought I could not breathe in that fine air.” Whymper’s
observations prove that man may gradually accustom himself to
these great alterations in barometric pressure, though the dangers of
want of training and of sudden ascents are well known.
Paul Bert, by means of a metal cylinder, in which he shut himself,
had the pressure of the air reduced to be equivalent with that on
Mont Blanc, but was soon sick and dizzy; afterwards, in experiments,
he was able so much to revive himself with bags of oxygen gas, that
three balloonists were emboldened to ascend to a height of 28,000
feet, taking with them a supply of oxygen: with the result that when
the balloon again reached earth two of the aeronauts were dead,
and the third had a very narrow escape. Man has not yet gained the
summit of Mount Everest.
Very extraordinary is the description given of the effects of altered
atmospheric pressure by early climbers. Mr. Fellows (afterwards Sir
Charles Fellows) in 1827, with Mr. Hawes and ten guides, writes that
at the distance of 1000 feet below the summit of Mont Blanc, “the
effect of the rarity of the air was still more striking, for the noses of
several of our guides burst out with blood.... None of us were free
from many effects of the peculiarities of the atmosphere: we all spat
blood; the eyes of all were blood-shot, our faces were blistered, and
in our respiration we all suffered intensely; for it was impossible to
proceed many paces without stopping to recover our breath.” Near
the summit “two of our guides fell from faintness, and copiously
vomited blood, while all of us gave proof of its internal loss (we all
experienced symptoms of haematuria).” Mr. Fellows and his
companions suffered less than did the guides.
Those who are interested in this subject should read the account
of the ascent of the German Emperor’s balloon Phœnix in 1895, in
which Coxwell’s record was beaten. Oxygen cylinders were used.
My friend, A. B., joined me at Schwarz See to climb the
Matterhorn. Our two guides were also ready; the leading man, Alois
Kalbermatten, we usually called Hercules; his brother, a still stronger
man, was named Quinbus Flestrin, or the man-mountain. Together
we went up to the hut to spend the night, ready to begin our ascent
in the morning. As we were thinking about supper there came down
a wretched, worn-out, grey lady, who said she had been up the
Matterhorn, was too exhausted to proceed, and must stay the night
with us. The place was very unfit, dirty, and stuffy, so we made her
rest awhile, restoring her with brandy and lemonade. I then made her
guides rope her carefully the whole of the way down, and she
reached the hotel safely.
On a fine day when the Matterhorn will “go,” the hut is always
crowded, chiefly with foreigners, and we stretched ourselves on the
bunkers alongside of a polyglot Pole, who talked half the night.
Italian guides stole one of our lanterns, and my friend’s silk scarf.
We had a lovely day for our ascent, which occupied six hours,
including halts and feedings. Upon the summit we spent about an
hour of most glorious life in view of Italy on one side and Switzerland
on the other, while we walked carefully on the delicate ridge of snow
which forms the apex of the peak. The ascent of the Matterhorn from
the Zermatt side is more interesting historically than as a climb. The
hut occupied by Whymper in early attempts still remains, and as the
guides pass the fatal spot they cheerfully point out where poor so
and so broke his neck, where poor Dr. B. died. The shattered
photographic apparatus remains on the precipice upon which, two
years ago, an entire party was killed.
The difficult parts near the top are now so strongly roped that
some are tempted to make this climb who are not fitted by previous
training, and as a tired man is a dangerous man on a steep mountain
which is 14,700 feet high, I fear we have not done with accidents on
the Matterhorn. The descent ought to be carefully done, and almost
as long a time given to it as the ascent. At present there is no railway
up, but such a project is seriously in the air, or, like the mountain, in
nubibus.
After a pleasant day at Schwarz See wandering above the
beautiful Zmutt valley, we went to Zermatt and thence to the Trift Inn
to try the Ober-Gabelhorn, but bad weather beat us back. Later on
we were successful, and had a glorious day, starting at two in the
morning in the starlight.
“So climbers by some Alpine mere,
Walk very softly thro’ the clear
Unlitten dawn of day:
The morning star before them shows
Beyond the rocks, beyond the snows,
Their never-travelled way.”
We were five and a half hours climbing up, and were back about
half an hour after mid-day. The snow was in good order, but coming
down we had a run to dodge falling stones, though none came upon
us. Next day we crossed the Trift Joch, a famous pass from Zermatt
to Zinal. From our inn we reached the Mountet hut under five hours,
intending to return over the Rothhorn next day; but at the hut a great
storm of hail and wind kept us in shelter for a time, and drove us
down in the afternoon to Zinal, where it rained night and day
continuously.
ICEBERGS STRANDED ON THE BED OF THE MÄRJELEN SEE AFTER THE
DEPARTURE OF THE WATER.
With such a downfall, which on the high peaks would be mostly
snow, it was useless to think of any Zermatt mountains at present, so
we decided to go to the Eggishorn Hotel, and then try the Jungfrau,
one of the Oberland giants. The storm had rather scattered me, for I
had some wraps at the Trift inn, a bag at Zermatt, unpaid bills at both
places, besides a wife at Saas Fée. However, this was settled so far
as luggage and payment concerned me, by sending our man to
arrange it, and we went off to the Eggishorn. On a Sunday afternoon,
after service in the little church, we walked to the Concordia hut, and
found the Märjelen See drained almost dry; instead of a great blue
sheet of water with icebergs floating in it, there is nothing but a
muddy pond. This is partly the result of draining operations, and
makes the valley below much safer as a dwelling place, but takes
away from the beauty of this part of the great Aletsch glacier.
It is interesting to note the great stones which now and then are
carried about on these icebergs, or left stranded when the water is
low; thus illustrating, on a small scale, the theory which best explains
the position of erratic boulders—namely, that they were carried by
icebergs in the glacial age.
The Concordia hut is grandly situated near the beginning of the
great glacier, close to the Oberland mountains, and is a starting-point
for many expeditions. A member of the Swiss Alpine Club who
shared the hut with us was a most excitable little man, and signalled
his arrival by letting off with a frightful explosion a large maroon, and
to my horror he carried another, quite as large as my fist, ready for
his departure in the morning. He actually began to light the thing
inside the hut just before our start, but we got outside and out of the
way, while in the darkness before the dawn, under the quiet stars, he
yelled, and waved his hands about, and burst his infernal machine. It
is hard to forgive these queer foreign manners. He afterwards
stopped his guide that he might exchange cards with us.
After this adventure we had a quiet time and a perfect day on the
Jungfrau. We took five and a half hours to make the ascent,
including breakfasts and halts. There is just room to stand or sit
carefully on the highest point of snow. We had a glorious view. The
beautiful green valleys of Grindelwald and Lauterbrunnen spread at
our feet, and all the peaks around us far and near were perfectly
defined. The sun was all day very powerful, and the reflection off the
recent snow was dazzling in brightness; my face and ears got
touched slightly in spite of anointing with lanoline, and peeled,
though not painfully, during the next few days. To prevent sunburn
hazeline cream is a most excellent application, combining a
vegetable astringent with lanoline.
Early on the morning following we crossed the Lötschen Lücke, a
beautiful pass of snow and ice, with the finest crevasses full of
strange ice architecture, and came to Ried in the Lötschen Thal,
where is a comfortable inn at the foot of the Bietschhorn, the
mountain we were anxious to climb. Here the weather broke, great
clouds came with a south-west wind, and gathered all over Italy. The
peaks could not be seen in the stormy sky, while a large eagle or
lämmergeyer hovered over the hotel.
We had to give up our expedition, and after a quiet day in this
peaceful inn we went down to the Rhone Valley, dined at Sierre,
slept at Sion—lulled to sleep by pouring rain—and next night came
to Chamounix by way of the Tête Noire. A shadow was over
Chamounix because of the sad death on Mont Blanc of that well-
known Oxford scholar, Mr. R. L. Nettleship. I saw the newly turned
sods on his grave in the little churchyard, and heard again the story
of his loss, so far as it ever will be known. After a stormy night spent
in a snow shelter, his guides came down and left his body on the
mountain, where it was found by a search party later on. Mr. Myer’s
beautiful lines seem to have been made for such an event:
“Here let us leave him; for his shroud the snow,
For funeral lamps he has the planets seven,
For a great sign the icy stair shall go
Between the heights to heaven.”
The survivors must have been very strong fellows and able to carry
very thick clothing. Certainly a storm on a great mountain is very
awful to encounter, and the strongest man may die if he tries to face
it and fight the elements.
At Montenvers, above Chamounix, there is the well-known inn,
comfortable enough if the weather be fine, from which we took
blankets and food, and crossing the mer de glace, bivouacked a few
hours up the rocks on the other side, in order to climb the Aiguille du
Dru.
“The Dru is a Dragon of mountains,
They scaled him long ago.”
Pardon the parody. But we were not to be fortunate—an angry

sunset, so gorgeous as to repay any day of laborious mountain
climbing, was followed before midnight by a storm of wind, hail,
thunder, and lightning. Crouched under a rock with the rain running
into our ears, we got through the hours of darkness, and in the
morning, though we could hardly stand up for the wind, our guides
managed to light a fire in a deep hole, and cooked some chocolate
for us, and, as soon as the weather and daylight allowed us, we
climbed down to the inn.
My wife in my absence had arrived there, while I was on a rock all
night in the storm, and we each had our adventures to relate. A few
days of broken weather ended in snow all round the hotel. No more
mountains were to be climbed by me this year, and regretful good-
byes had to be said to my guides.
Our journey home was made by Geneva. On the way we passed
the scene of the great catastrophe at St. Gervais in July last. Here
miles of mud covered the green meadows, uprended trees stripped
of their bark and branches, demolished houses, fragments of timber
and rock, were strewn about wherever they had been hurled by the
violence of the flood. An inhabitant of a near village told me that at
one in the morning the avalanche and deluge came down on the ill-
fated hotel, crushed down everything in its way; that he saw next day
the people who were saved from the flood were dying in numbers, as
he said, choked and poisoned (empoisonné) by the filthy stuff which
had filled their mouths, lungs, and stomachs. One hundred and
twenty-five bodies were found, but the number of the dead will never
be known. Only a week ago an arm and part of the bust had been
found five miles from St. Gervais; many such dreadful relics are yet
to be discovered. A baby still in its cradle was carried miles away to
a village below, but had not survived the perilous voyage.
The best account of the cause of this catastrophe appeared
November 1892, in Knowledge, written by The Right Hon. Sir
Edward Fry. An enormous amount of subglacial water was suddenly
let loose from high up on the Tête Rousses glacier, where two great
chasms were photographed next day. The moving mass of ice and
water destroyed the village of Bionnay and hurled down everything in
its irresistible course, including a rock of vast dimensions. “The
villagers of Bionnay were intending to celebrate a fête on the 14th
July, and, with a view to letting off feux de joie on that occasion,
holes had been bored in a stone then in the village. That stone, with
its holes, is now at St. Gervais, and was probably highly effective in
the destruction of the baths. It is rather a rock than a stone. It is
further stated that the iron safe in the office of the baths was carried
five miles down the stream to Sallanches, where it was found.”
Geologists do not perhaps yet realize what such deluging
catastrophe can effect. Slow action, as of evolution among the living,
and the gradual change effected by ice and water in the inorganic
world, chiefly impress us to-day. But such conditions of ice as are
described by Sir Martin Conway in his valuable book on the
Karakoram-Himalayan glacier, whereon large quantities of water
would lie with no crevasses or chinks to carry it away, seem to afford
opportunities for catastrophe on a gigantic scale, and help the
imagination to realize such possibilities in the glacial age.
These great disasters, with the terrible boiler explosion on the
Lake of Geneva, have made the fire at Grindelwald seem quite a
small affair, and there have been very few climbing fatalities this
season. My wife told me that a victim of the Grindelwald fire arrived
at Fée in his only surviving suit of clothes. To the victim the rhyme
fitted aptly:
“I’ve lost my portmanteau! I pity your grief!
My sermons were in it! I pity the thief!”
For all the poor parson’s garments were looted, but he discovered at
the Fée post-office his two bags crammed one inside the other,
containing only his twelve original sermons and two old shoes!
A romantic robbery took place at Arolla, where a gentleman
walking alone on the glacier was set upon by a brigand, who covered
him with his gun, and made him put his property on the snow—a
selection was then made by this Italian rascal, who fled over the
frontier into his own country, where such thieves abound.
The railway journey through Neuchâtel to Bâle is through fine
country, and Bâle itself between the Black Forest and the Jura, with
its old-world look and its bridges over the Rhine, is well worth a visit.
You will find here memorials of Erasmus, of Holbein, of Paracelsus,
with museums full of interesting mediaeval work—while at the
Hospital you have evidence that modern methods are understood,
and the appliances, especially on the surgical side, are the best
obtainable in Europe. Three hundred beds are contained in the
building, and, like our own noble institution of Addenbrooke’s, this is
endowed and supported by liberal citizens, who wisely use their
wealth and knowledge, not merely for profit and loss, but “for the
glory of God and the relief of man’s estate.”
A Month upon the Mountains
1891
Contrast between fens and mountains—The south side of the Lake of Geneva—
The Great St. Bernard Pass—The St. Bernard dogs—A walk in Italy—The St.
Theodule Pass—Last year’s accident on the Matterhorn—The Täsch Alp hut
and a lady climber—The Mischabeljoch and Alphubel mountain—Saas Fée
and the walk by the chapels—The old stone bridge at Fée—The Portjengrat—
The ascent of the Südlenzspitze and Nadelhorn—The Laquinhorn with Mr.
Eyre—The Rothhorn ascent from Zermatt—The Märjelen See.
What change can be imagined greater than from these “gray flats”
to the glorious snow mountains? The sea, except where there may
be a bold and broken coast line, is too much like our own
surrounding surface, which God never meant to be seen, and which,
according to our forefathers, we owe entirely to Drains, Dutchmen,
and the Devil. My wife and I are both active persons, and, as we
usually take our excursions in the Alps, it may interest other
travellers to have this year a brief account of a fen man’s adventures
in foreign parts. To start at 11 o’clock in the morning from London it
was formerly necessary to sleep in town overnight: now the train
serves, and we go direct from Cambridge and travel in twenty-four
hours to Switzerland. Rather avoiding the more usual routes, after a
nasty game of pitch and toss in the channel we arrive at Paris, cross
that city in a cab, refusing to be dropped by the ingenious driver at
the wrong station (Vincennes instead of P.L.M.), dine comfortably,
and then sleep uncomfortably in the carriage until we reach the Lake
of Geneva, the south side of which, by the way, is not so well known
as is the other. This blue sheet of water is shaped like a crescent
moon, the horns pointed downwards so that the concave edge is
south, and along this we coasted fifty miles in a small steamboat,
admiring the beauty of the lovely lake and the vine-covered slopes of
the shore with the mountains beyond. It was too far away to the
north for any view of the other coast—or of the famous castle of
Chillon. On board we can wash, feed, and write letters, delight
ourselves with the varied scenes around, the voyage made more
refreshing from the contrast after the dusty shaking railway box in
which we were packed so many hours.
Landing at Bouveret—our heavy luggage having been sent by
post to Zermatt from Geneva—we are free of everything except
satchel and stick, knapsack and ice-axe. A short journey by train to
Martigny in the Rhone Valley brings us at about 4 p.m. on the second
day of our travels, and here we took a one-horse carriage up as far
as Liddes, on our way over the famous Great St. Bernard Pass. At 9
o’clock the new inn at Liddes was all dark and shut up, but we soon
had out the landlord, who got us supper and good beds. Next
morning we were up at 4 o’clock, and I walked after my wife’s mule
as far as the Hospice, just halting to see the place, the monks, and
dogs. All is very like the Hospice on the Simplon Pass, with like rules
and regulations for the society of Austin Canons regular who live
here a life of genuine charity. Alas! to give up the cherished delusion
that the dogs search for lost travellers in the snow! Have we not
seen the picture of the dog with a child on its back and brandy keg
round its neck? “Travellers pass every day during the winter,
notwithstanding the perils of such a journey at such times. These
persons, when they arrive at a certain house not far from the summit,
are desired to wait until the following morning, when a servant and a
dog descend from the top to this kind of refuge and take up all the
persons assembled, the servant being conducted by the dog, who, it
appears, never misses his way, but, entirely hidden, except his tail,
in the snow, directs the march of the whole cavalcade.” If any
traveller lie dead or dying in the track, the dog will probably discover
him, and in this way rescue has come for wanderers over the pass
when lost between the stations.
There are five or six dogs at the Hospice; they are not so fine and
large as the show of St. Bernard dogs in England. They are bred in
the canton of Berne, and are supposed to be a cross between the
Newfoundland and the Pyrenean.
The Great St. Bernard, though not so grand as other high passes,
is full of historical interest—we are on the track of the great
Napoleon, we lunch in the same room at Bourg St. Pierre—we
realize what it must have cost him to drag his cannon over such a
place. From the Hospice we both walk an hour down to St. Rémy,
the Italian frontier—with our muleteer, who left his animal at the
Hospice, to carry our things; he was anxious to know whether I had
tobacco or cigars, and carefully hid his own modest packet before he
led us to the Custom House. The soldiers dismissed us civilly after a
complete inspection of our knapsacks.
At St. Rémy, after lunch we drove down to Aosta. In this valley live
many cretins; everything else is perfectly beautiful under the blue
Italian sky, strangely different from the desolate and dreary pass
above.
From Aosta a short railway journey brought us to Châtillon at
about 4 p.m., on our third day out. Hiring a likely looking man, named
Luigi Bich, to carry our traps up to Valtournanche, we finished the
day by a good four hours’ walk, all up hill, with a very fine view of the
Matterhorn at the end of our climb. Here we sup and sleep, rising
before day to follow a lantern and walk over the St. Theodule Pass to
our hotel at Schwarz See, above Zermatt. We had breakfast at
Breuil, best known to British travellers from its forming the base of
operations in the ascent of the Matterhorn from the Italian side.
Our guide, who seemed rather out of condition, begged to be
allowed to bring along a boy, his nephew, who was to be no further
expense to monsieur. When we reached the top of the pass after a
hot and fatiguing walk through fresh snow, a little mountain inn
offered us rest and refreshment. The view is very fine, especially of
the Matterhorn and the range on the other side beginning with the
Breithorn; here the sunlight on the vast snow slopes was far too
brilliant to be faced without dark glasses. After a short noon-day
sleep this is indeed like waking in another world. The wily Italian at
the proper moment now interviewed me, and represented that it was
impossible he could properly care for madame unless he should
bring his boy also; of course the boy went with us, and obtained a
vast amount of pleasure at a small cost to his employer.
We roped as in duty bound over the névé, and came to Schwarz
See; the hotel is built on one of the spurs of the Matterhorn, about
three hours above Zermatt. As usual we found friends in residence,
and after so long a journey were glad of the shelter of a comfortable
inn. A daughter of the great Alexander Seiler is in charge, and is
devoted to the care of her visitors, who find all they can possibly
wish for, and more than would be expected at 8,000 feet above the
sea.
One object of my visit here was to climb the Matterhorn, that grand
rock which is more impressive than most higher peaks from its
isolated position, standing “alone in its glory.” It is impossible to avoid
thinking of the many mountaineers who have been killed there; one
comes to regard it as a great gravestone in memory of these, and
can fully realize the expression of Tyndall as to the “moral effect” of
this mountain upon the climber. Unfortunately, the Matterhorn would
not “go” this year—only three ascents were made so far as I know—
whereas in a good year 75 have gone up.
Of these three ascents I witnessed the second, and could see with
a telescope that it was a long and laborious business, with much
snow to plough through, and many steps to be cut. The man with his
two guides came down just before dark, so why the Times should in
the notice of this feat have left the poor fellow on the summit at 9
p.m. it is hard to say. In September a party of five got up, and came
down with difficulty, much of the descent being by lantern, and only
arrived at Schwarz See at 3 in the morning. They had found, near
where ropes are stretched over a difficult bit of the mountain, a
portion of the camera which belonged to the party of three who were
killed last year, thus confirming one theory of the disaster, that in the
descent the box on the back touched the steep slope, and throwing
the bearer off his step, hurled the whole party to destruction.
A man who saw their bodies told me that they were battered
beyond recognition, and described how the brother of one of the
victims howled loudly at the sight, in that utter abandonment to grief
so rarely seen in a strong man, so terrible to witness.
But these are the adventures of others—to continue my own. By a
short excursion round to Staffel Alp I nearly completed a tour of the
Matterhorn; it appears from this aspect like an enormous snow
cathedral, just the tower remaining to show the dark rock of the
peak, the rest is ice and snow.
The weather was too uncertain to attempt much of an expedition,
and after a week, down came the snow—over boot tops—all round
the hotel. But all is ready, guides are waiting, an active friend comes
to the hotel, and as soon as the sun shines we go down to Zermatt,
where I part with my wife, she to journey next morning to Rieder
Furka, while I and my friend with guides sleep up at the Täsch Alp
hut for an ascent in the early morning.
My first experience here occurred of a real lady climber in action;
she had sent on her guide and secured a room to herself, rather
hard upon the unfortunate male, as the dens of the wooden cabin
contain each two or three beds. My friend and I had to toss up who
should sleep on the floor—I won the only remaining bed. This lady
was dressed in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers, and worsted
stockings; she looked very business-like; one of my guides was
much interested and said, “She is a gentleman-lady.” She was a
Viennese, and kept possession of her more comfortable quarters,
though my friend was not polite enough to say that he preferred
sleeping on the floor. On this point I feel very strongly, that a lady
should behave on such occasions exactly as if the cabin were a
railway carriage.
At about half-past two we were up, intending to traverse the
Mischabeljoch, and ascend the Alphubel Mountain, thence down to
Saas Fée. We followed a lantern up to the snow and rock, on a very
steep, frozen moraine, awkward to walk on in the dark; then roped,
and had a good day, except that the snow was fresh and fatiguing.
Also we were longer in the descent than we liked, my friend’s knee,
which had been slightly hurt on a mountain some days before, was
now rather severely taxed, and this was the only expedition we
accomplished together. We stayed at Saas Fée, one of the best
places in Switzerland, good for walkers or climbers; it is about three-
quarters of an hour above Saas Grund—said to be the abode of Mrs.
Grundy, who has not yet reached Saas Fée.
The most charming walk down to the valley is by the chapels, of
which there are a dozen or more, each full of quaint, coloured
wooden figures, about two feet high, representing scenes in the life
of our Lord. The artistic merit of these figures is very unequal—some
few are said to be the work of an Italian artist named Tabaketti, of the
sixteenth century, who crossed the frontier and worked on the Swiss
side. An odd effect is produced by the villainous-looking wretches
who are torturing the Saviour, being represented with goitres and a
cretinous aspect truly repulsive.
A few minutes’ walk from the hotel towards Mattmark is a
wonderful old bridge over the mountain torrent. It is one of the most
ancient structures in Switzerland; flat stones are laid, over-lapping
more and more, to meet similarly placed flat stones on the other side
of the stream, advantage being taken of big boulders of rock which
approach to form natural buttresses. The whole is so overgrown with
trees and moss that many pass over it without notice.
At Saas Fée, on a moraine in the midst of glaciers and ice falls,
there is a tiny timber-built inn, presided over by Clara, who is well
known for the good tea she always gives the tired traveller, and
certainly her name ought to appear in the guide books. If only a hut
could be built higher up the Lange Fluh, mountaineers could sleep
above, and Clara could supply provisions from below; this would be
a real gain to climbers.
OLD STONE BRIDGE AT SAAS FÉE.
To test my friend’s feeble knee, he was to try the Portjengrat, a
most interesting climb, in which I was much tempted to join; but
having done it in a former season, I took a lazy day—then finding
that after his climb my friend limped a good deal, I set about a
serious expedition, the ascent of the Südlenzspitze, without him.
With two good guides, and a porter to carry up blankets, firewood,
and provisions, I started one afternoon and reached a rock some
hours above Fée, where we were to sleep; with our axes we cleared
away several hundredweight of ice and snow, lighted a fire, cooked
two tins of Moir’s turtle soup, mixing it in a big pot with pannikins of
snow. Words can’t express how good it was, how it hit the right
place! We ate in the dark, except for a feeble lantern; then spreading
a rug over the little shelf we had cleared, we all lay down as tight as
sardines in a tin, so that I could not even turn on my long axis. I was
not very cold, having on three pairs of stockings, three waistcoats, a
shawl, a rug, and the blanket in which we were all packed. There
was no need for me to fear walking in my sleep over a precipice. I
didn’t sleep. The wind nearly blew me out of my rug and howled like
a savage beast, but at length the morning broke and “tipped the hills
with gold.” Day-dawns such as these live in the memory for ever.
After a cup of hot chocolate, the porter went down, and we began to
climb the Südlenzspitze, a peak over 14,000 feet high, next to the
Dom one of the highest points in Switzerland; several parties had
failed this year, and we were anxious to do it with the Nadelhorn as
well, to crown our success. The Südlenzspitze is not a “guide book
mountain,” but it is a good climb, and there is an awkward
gendarme, or pinnacle, standing up like an obstructing sentinel on a
ridge along which it is necessary to travel. This gendarme may be
the size of a church or not larger than a lamp post, and give serious
trouble to the climber. However, we struggled to the top, and found a
tremendous wind on the peak, so that we had to wear our sleeping
caps over our ears and feel now and then our frozen features. Byron
must have imagined such an ascent when he wrote those fine lines:
He who ascends to mountain-tops, shall find
The loftiest peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow.
He who surpasses or subdues mankind
Must look down on the hate of those below.
Though far above the sun of glory glow,
And far beneath the earth and ocean spread,
Round him are icy rocks, and loudly blow
Contending tempests on his naked head,
And thus reward the toils which to these summits led.

Ebook Military Strategy of Great Powers Managing Power Asymmetry and Structural Change in The 21St Century Cass Military Studies 1St Edition Hakan Edstrom Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ebook Military Strategy of Great Powers Managing Power Asymmetry and Structural Change in The 21St Century Cass Military Studies 1St Edition Hakan Edstrom Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Military Strategy of Great Powers:

Managing Power Asymmetry and

Chess Explained The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition Sam Collins

Starting Out The c3 Sicilian 1st Edition John Emms

The Paper Issue 83 1st Edition Origamiusa

The American Revolution 1774 83 2nd Edition Daniel

NL ARMS Netherlands Annual Review of Military Studies

BNF 83 (British National Formulary) March 2022 Joint

English Grammar Exercises with answers Part 4 Your

A Tenth Century Byzantine Military Manual The Sylloge

Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg

This book explores the military strategies of the five system-determining

Håkan Edström is an Associate Professor of Political Science and a Senior

Jacob Westberg is an Associate Professor of War Studies and a Senior

Understanding Insurgent Resilience

For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg

ISBN: 978-0-367-74319-2 (hbk)

1 The diversity of great powers’ strategies 1

2 Exploring great power strategies 7

3 Operationalising the dependent variable 39

4 The US and the strategy of the unipole 78

5 The strategies of the contesters 127

6 The strategies of the conservators 177

7 Managing power asymmetry and structural change 233

2.1 The structure of the international system in the present

2.1 Indicators of the economic capabilities of six potential

ABM Anti-Ballistic Missiles

Contrary to mainstream research informed by structural realism, this book

2.1 Change and stability in the post-Cold War international

2.1.1 Basic premises of structural realism

2.1.2 The stability of unipolar systems

2.2 System stability and great power interaction processes

2.2.1 Basic premises of power transition theory

2.2.2 Status competition

2.2.3 The distribution of power in the present international system

Table 2.1 Indicators of the economic capabilities of six potential system-determining

Country GDP (billion USD) GDP per capita (USD)

The US 21,433 65,254

Source: International Monetary Fund.

Concerning military capacities, we are also interested in both quantity and

Country Accumulated military expenditures 2010–2019 (billion USD)

Sources: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Access to nuclear weapons is important both as a defensive deterrent and

Pardon the parody. But we were not to be fortunate—an angry

You might also like