Soft balancing is a recent addition to
balance of power theory used to describe non-military forms of
balancing evident since the end of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, particularly during and after the 2003
Iraq War
{{Infobox military conflict
, conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق (Kurdish languages, Kurdish)
, partof = the Iraq conflict (2003–present), I ...
. Soft balancing as a strategy can be attributed to the work of
Robert Pape
Robert Anthony Pape Jr. (born April 24, 1960) is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and t ...
and
T. V. Paul
Thazha Varkey Paul (born in 1956) is an Indo-Canadian political scientist. He is a James McGill professor of International Relations in the department of Political Science at McGill University. Paul specializes in International Relations, especia ...
. It was criticized by
Stephen Brooks,
William Wohlforth
William Curti Wohlforth (born 1959) is the Daniel Webster Professor of Government in the Dartmouth College Department of Government, of which he was chair for three academic years (2006-2009). Wohlforth was Editor-in-chief of ''Security Studies
...
and Augusto Dall'Agnol. Soft balancing has been practiced in many developing countries, such as
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
and
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
. Most countries share the common denominator of not having a strong military force, thus they utilize internal force rather than aggressive force.
Soft balancing occurs when weaker states decide that the dominance and influence of a stronger state is unacceptable, but that the military advantage of the stronger state is so overwhelming that traditional balancing is infeasible or even impossible. In addition to overwhelming military superiority, scholars also suggest that
democratic peace theory
The democratic peace theory posits that democracies are hesitant to engage in armed conflict with other identified democracies. Among proponents of the democratic peace theory, several factors are held as motivating peace between democratic s ...
suggests a preference toward soft, rather than hard, balancing among democracies.
As opposed to traditional balancing, soft balancing is undertaken not to physically shift the balance of power but to undermine, frustrate, and increase the cost of unilateral action for the stronger state. Soft balancing is not undertaken via military effort, but via a combination of economic, diplomatic and institutional methods. In other words, soft balancing uses "non-military tools to delay, frustrate and undermine aggressive unilateral U.S. military policies". Since it uses non-military means, soft balancing is regarded as ineffective by Thomas Mowle and David Sacko, who write that soft balancing is “balancing that does not balance at all.”
[Thomas S. Mowle & David H. Sacko,''The Unipolar World: An Unbalanced Future'', (New York: Macmillan, 2007), p. 147.]
Soft balancing is contrasted with
hard balancing and
bandwagoning
Bandwagoning in international relations occurs when a state aligns with a stronger, adversarial power and concedes that the stronger adversary-turned-partner disproportionately gains in the spoils they conquer together. Bandwagoning, therefore, ...
.
See also
*
Balance of threat
The balance of threat theory was proposed by Stephen M. Walt in his article ''Alliance Formation and the Balance of World Power'', published in the journal '' International Security'' in 1985. It was later further elaborated in his book ''The Ori ...
*
Balance of power in international relations
The balance of power theory in international relations suggests that states may secure their survival by preventing any one state from gaining enough military power to dominate all others. If one state becomes much stronger, the theory predic ...
*
Bandwagoning
Bandwagoning in international relations occurs when a state aligns with a stronger, adversarial power and concedes that the stronger adversary-turned-partner disproportionately gains in the spoils they conquer together. Bandwagoning, therefore, ...
*
Hard balancing
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soft Balancing
International relations