Notes 181
have constantly sought opportunities to expand, have exploited these opportun-
ities, and have become more aggressive with increasing power. The examples of
nonexpansion were primarily the result of more successful deterrence rather than
the disappearance of the expansion motif. For example, Germany in 1871–1900 was
a nonaggressive country, but this stemmed from the fact that any further expansion
beyond unification of Germany would have led to a war of great powers in which
Germany would have lost. Therefore, as the theory expects, Germany accepted
the status quo and waited until 1903, in which it became a potential hegemon,
upon achieving greater military well-being and power than any other European
country and an aggressive policy appeared immediately. The two cases in which
democratic powers were involved, the United States and Great Britain, posed a dif-
ficult test for Mearsheimer’s theory, and it passed it. Mearsheimer argues that the
nonexpansion of these two powers to Europe stemmed from the “checking power
of the water”—the Atlantic Ocean preventing the United States from expanding
to Europe just as the English Channel prevented the expansion of Great Britain to
Europe. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, chapter 6.
- Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, p. 21.
- For studies from the offensive realism, see Mearsheimer, “Back to
the Future”; Mearsheimer, “The False Promise of International Institutions”;
Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics; Zakaria, From Wealth to Power;
Schweller, “Bandwagoning for Profit”; Randall L. Schweller, Deadly Imbalances:
Tripolarity and Hitler’s Strategy of World Conquest (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1998); Samuel P. Huntington, “Why International Primacy Matters,” Inter-
national Security, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Spring 1993), pp. 68–83; Labs “Beyond Victory.” - Taliaferro, “Security Seeking under Anarchy,” pp. 158–159.
- Bull, The Anarchical Society; Milner, “The Assumption of Anarchy in Inter-
national Relations Theory.” - Neorealism argues that the main purpose of countries is to prevent hege-
mony of other countries and maintain the balance of power in the system. Accord-
ing to this assumption, countries, particularly great powers, will balance against
countries that will be the key threat to their interests, particularly against any coun-
try that will act to establish a hegemonic status in the system. The theory argues
that the balance mechanism usually works successfully in preventing hegemony,
whether the reason for this is that potential hegemons are deterred from the forma-
tion of military coalitions against them or that the potential hegemons are defeated
in war after the failure of deterrence. Levy, “Contending Theories of International
Conflict,” p. 6. - Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, pp. 34–35.
- Zakaria presents a similar argument, whereby European state people,
under the system of great powers of the 19th century, clearly understood that capa-
bilities shaped intentions. Zakaria, From Wealth to Power, p. 5. - Zakaria, From Wealth to Power; Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers.
- The most significant study of homeostatic and ideas stemming from it
remains a book dating from the 1960s. Karl W. Deutsch, The Nerves of Government:
Models of Political Communication and Control (London: Free Press, 1966), especially
chapters 5, 11. Robert Jervis’s book of 1997 relating to the term in a number of
contexts is also noteworthy. Robert Jervis, System Effects: Complexity in Political and
Social Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), especially pp. 275–282. - Deutsch, The Nerves of Government, pp. 79, 184, 187.