Balance of power is a philosophy that has remained applicable to this day even though it was formed in the 1500s, at the beginning of the unification of the new global political system. The purpose of balance of power, as described by scholar Henry Kissinger, is “not designed to prevent conflicts, but to limit them.” When looking at Europe, the purpose of balance of power would be to produce the best long-term outcome with the least amount of fighting within Europe. Continentally, it succeeded, with very few wars fought on European land between the different countries while and after the system stabilized. Because of their inability to gain power within Europe, states exported their rivalries to the international world, turning areas across the globe into battlegrounds for states to fight it out and indirectly gain power over one another. As the scholar Tilly states, “War makes states and states make war.” This held true in Europe, where states were constantly at war with one another, though not on European land but rather on international lands. Thus, balance of power worked out domestically by limiting most conflicts and preventing one European country from conquering all the rest, but internationally it exacerbated the disputes due to the fact that countries would fight for a long time in low-stakes, international battles for power.

Continentally, Europe’s system of balance of power completed its goal of limiting conflicts—a positive. States were unable to go to war with neighboring countries or widen their borders because the balance of power system meant that “no new monarchy could increase its dominions without stirring rivals to seek compensation.” Thus, no country could take over neighboring countries without other countries stopping them, like a high stakes game of tug of war. If someone tugged, the others would pull back. A prime example of this system at play intercontinentally is in the 18th century, when the balance of power gradually emerged due to the French’s attempt to conquer Europe. Here, the system succeeded because as Kissinger put it, only countries working together “not in pursuit of a theory of international relations but out of pure self-interest to block the ambitions of the most powerful” would be able to flourish in this system. The Europeans excelled in the system: they were able to to block French attempts to conquer Europe by working together. Another example is during the Napoleonic Wars, when Napoleon attempted to conquer all of Europe. At the beginning, it worked—“At the height of the Napoleonic empire in 1810-1812, France controlled Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and much of Germany, Poland, Croatia, and Slovenia.” However, while France did get incredibly close to upending the balance of power in Europe completely and conquering it all, the system prevailed. As the system meant that no country could attempt to dominate Europe without the others seeking to even the odds again, Austria, Prussia, Britain, and Russia were all allied against Napoleon and fought to beat him back until finally they won and restored balance to Europe. Thus, balance of power triumphed in the European theater and stopped one country from conquering the entire land. 

However, thanks to the balance of power, the international world was also forced to play host to Europe’s constant struggle for power and wealth, and in these battles the countries kept conquering even if they lost one or two battles because there were always more countries to fight in. India is a prime example of how conflicts were simply packaged and exported out of Europe. As different European countries such as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands set their eyes on the world, the intra-European rivalry got worse and worse. Countries were constantly fighting and they became locked in a battle against one another to see who could conquer more of India. Soon, countries such as Great Britain, France, and the Netherlands formed East India Companies around the 1600s, and “they and the Portuguese formed a three-cornered struggle for the India trade” until finally the English won the battle. However, this hardly affected the other countries at all because European powers were constantly bouncing around to different countries. The Portugese were called the “Lord of the conquest, navigation and commerce of India, Ethiopia, Arabia and Persia”, a title that demonstrates just how many countries Portugal had a stake in. The Dutch “governed large lowland territories as the kingdom of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] retreated.” When they lost India it was no big deal, because they had three other countries to fall back on and continue to fight over. Or, after the French lost the Seven Years’ War to the British in 1763, they were able to turn their eye “to western North Africa as a site for colonization and to Egypt” instead. It thus made the battles relatively low stakes for the warring countries as they fought.

The constant fighting between the European states was also low stakes due to the fact that it was international: as long as the motherland was not threatened, the countries could continue to quarrel for power. This was because if the mother country was ever threatened the stakes would rise to extremes due to the fact that threatening the capitol of a country is very different from threatening a colony. The capitol is like the head of the entire machine, while the colonies are the limbs—one can function without a toe or a finger, but cut off the head and the entire machine stops working. An example can be seen during the Napoleonic wars, when the French attempted to conquer Russia in 1812. By the time the army reached Moscow, “the Russian winter had set in and the city was in flames, probably set by the Russians themselves to deprive the French of shelter from the cold.” That was how far countries would go when they were threatened. They lashed out much harder when the mother country was being threatened by gaining allies and doing whatever it took to win, while in battles for colonies nothing so drastic ever happened. For example, as a result of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) between France and Britain, “France lost to Britain almost all its colonial possessions in North America east of the Mississippi and in India, retaining only a few scattered trading stations.” However, even though the French lost the battle, they were able to come out of the entire affair relatively unscathed due to the fact that it had been a fight over a territory, and not the mother country. These stakes were much lower in the international battles, and so they continued on for decades—the battle for India lasted more than a century before the British assumed control while the Napoleonic wars, a European battle, only lasted a bit more than a decade.

Balance of power functioned as it was meant to on European land, while internationally conflicts only increased thanks to the fact that countries could confront one another for long periods of time in fights that were low stakes since none of them were in the motherland. Things could have changed drastically if Europe was one country. In the end, balance of power did and did not succeed. Long-term it certainly worked out for all parties—Europe is stabilized and at peace with the rest of the world. By Kissinger’s definition, it would be a success. Short-term is a different story due to the constant quarrels that took place between the countries internationally—while some could call it a success within Europe, it was more of a failure. Ultimately, it seems as though the benefits outweigh the drawbacks; without the European system of balance of power, the world today would be a completely different place, not necessarily for the better.

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