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"Rationalism and Security" published on by Oxford University Press.

As a way of clarifying and evaluating competing claims made by writers on alliances and the balance of power, I extend recent work on the relation between bargaining and war to a three-state setting where coalitions are possible. I show that if what is commonly called "balancing" occurs at all, it is because it is seen as a way of reducing the risk associated with possible exogenous changes in the distribution of military capabilities. It is therefore not necessarily inconsistent with what is called "bandwagoning," but can actually make bandwagoning more likely. Moreover, balancing need not occur for international systems to be stable.

As a way of clarifying & evaluating competing claims made by writers on alliances & the balance of power, I extend recent work on the relation between bargaining & war to a three-state setting where coalitions are possible. I show that if what is commonly called "balancing" occurs at all, it is because it is seen as a way of reducing the risk associated with possible exogenous changes in the distribution of military capabilities. It is therefore not necessarily inconsistent with what is called "bandwagoning," but can actually make bandwagoning more likely. Moreover, balancing need not occur for international systems to be stable. Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

Every possible relation between the distribution of power and the likelihood of war has been defended somewhere in the literature on international politics: war is least likely if power is distributed equally, war is least likely if power is distributed unequally, and the distribution of power has no effect on the likelihood of war. I try to settle this dispute by examining the effect of expectations about the outcome of war on the choice between war and negotiation. I argue that each of these mutually contradictory propositions can be derived from some plausible set of premises and thus that which one is correct depends on which set of premises best describes a situation. The most important factors affecting the relation between the distribution of power and the likelihood of war are (1) whether the terms of a compromise agreement that might be accepted in lieu of war affect the distribution of power between the antagonists and therefore the probability that the agreement will be enforced and (2) how many states' interests will be affected by the outcome.

Die Gleich- bzw. Ungleichverteilung von Macht und die Wahrscheinlichkeit von Kriegen sind das Thema. Die Frage, wie Machtverteilung und Kriege einander beeinflussen, ist schwer zu beantworten, da Diplomatie und/oder Krieg keine klare Alternative darstellen. Die Schwierigkeit besteht u.a. darin, daß Gewalt Mittel der Diplomatie sein kann und Machtungleichheit nie zwischen zwei Staaten allein zu betrachten ist, sondern im Kontext des Staatensystems insgesamt. "The relation between the distribution of power and the likelihood of war depends, then, on whether the terms of possible compromise agreements that might be accepted in lieu of war influence the balance of power between the antagonists and therefore influence the probability that the agreement will be enforced - and if they do, it depends on how many states' interests will be effected by the outcome. Thus there can be no general answer to the question of what relation one should expect between the distribution of power and the likelihood of war, and reasoning that may be appropriate for understanding conflicts among the great powers during certain historical periods may not be relevant to conflicts that have only local or regional significance or to other periods." Die Komplexität der Probleme belegt zugleich die Grenzen formaler Methoden im Zusammenhang internationaler Politik. "(1) the issues discussed here are more complicated than they are often made out to be and are therefore difficult to explore without the aid if formal models, but (2) in constructing such models one must be careful about the assumptions one makes." "Many models assume that prior to war, any agreements states might make are enforceable but that once war begins no further negotiation is possible - and then proceed to analyze the implications of there propositions in a world of two states. As the current civil war in Yugoslavia graphically illustrates, these assumptions are not as innocuous as they appear. And even scholars who are likely to notice the significance of assuming that agreements between states are enforceable (e.g., those who identify themselves as 'realists') tend to overlook the fact that the nonenforceability of agreementdoes not have the same significance in a world of more than two states that is has when there are only two." (AuD-Nar)

In spite of its widespread use, no one has ever stated clearly what the distinction between bipolar and multipolar systems refers to. Moreover, some common definitions of "bipolarity" imply behavior that is inconsistent with the behavior of states during the cold war. This article argues that the distinctive feature of post–World War II international politics was not that two states were more powerful than the others, as the literature on bipolarity would suggest, but that one state, the Soviet Union, occupied in peacetime a position of near-dominance on the Eurasian continent, a position that states in the past had been able to achieve only after a series of military victories. This fact explains the behavior that others have sought to explain by bipolarity, as well as behavior that is inconsistent with what common definitions of bipolarity would lead us to expect. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of the argument for structural theories of international politics and controversies about what lies ahead.