International Relations Theory of War 53
territories that it controls today overseas—for example Iraq, Afghanistan,
or Southeast Asia such as Japan and South Korea—it may lose its sole
hyperpower status in a unipolar world, resulting in a new unipolar sys-
tem leading with other polar powers such as China, or be replaced with
multipolar or bipolar world.
POSSIBLE POLARITY MODELS
Theoretically, in a state of anarchy, all sovereign countries are legally
equal, but in practice this is not the case. Because of the absolute or rel-
ative abilities of one country compared with others, countries have dif-
fering importance and influence in the international system. Therefore,
according to the current study, in the anarchic international system, there
may be three polarity models. A multipolar system—a system that has three
or more polar powers.^88 In such a system, the great powers constituting the
system will have higher status than that of the other powers and the states
that are not polar powers in the system. A bipolar system—a system that has
two polar powers. In such a system, the status of the two superpowers con-
stituting the system will be greater than that of the other powers and the
states that are not polar powers in the system. A unipolar system—a system
in which there is one polar power. In a system of this kind, the status of
the sole hyperpower constituting the system will be higher than that of the
other powers and states that are not polar powers in the system.
The polarity of the system may therefore change according to the
increase or decrease of the number of strong countries operating in it, but
this change does not lead to loss of its anarchic properties. The question of
which country is to be defined as a polar power in the international system
may seem meaningless, but for studies of the realist school and the current
study as well, the polarity of the system is of supreme importance.^89 The
polarity of the system affects not only the behavior of countries, but more
important, it affects the outcomes of their behavior. However, in the theoreti-
cal study of international relations, it is not always clear what the distin-
guishing characteristics of the polar powers compared with countries that
are not considered as players in the balance of power system are.^90
Usually, it is not exactly understood how polar powers are to be distin-
guished from other countries, and well-defined criteria for defining the
polar powers in the system are missing. For example, there is no consen-
sus whether the 19th century was characterized by hegemonies, bipolarity,
or multipolarity, or some combination of these three structural conditions.
This long debate proves that unlike the opinion of certain researchers,
common sense cannot serve as a sufficient basis for evaluating the number
of poles,^91 and that as long as a number of researchers try to base them-
selves on a more careful estimate of the number of polar powers in the
system, disagreements will continue to arise concerning the way in which