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, 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)
, partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror
, image ...
. Soft balancing as a strategy can be attributed to the work of
Robert Pape and
T. V. Paul. It was criticized by
Stephen Brooks,
William Wohlforth 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 ...
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 count ...
. 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.
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 Orig ...
*
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 predict ...
*
Bandwagoning
*
Hard balancing
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Soft Balancing
International relations