Unipolarity and Its Consequences - Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order - page 90

tions of unipolarity, it is difficult to see how a coalition of sufficient countervailing capabilit-
ies can be constructed. 14 If the unipolar state has the dominant economy, spends as much on
military capabilities as the rest of the world combined (and does so at a relatively low cost),
and has command of the commons—it is difficult to see how a traditional counterbalancing
alliance could actually be assembled to create a rival global power center.
The implication of this argument is that even if there is a demand for counterbalancing,
there is always a problem with the organization of its supply. But also, once the disparities
in power grow so great—that is, when unipolarity emerges—the supply will be next to im-
possible to provide simply because there is insufficient power capacity among the would-be
balancers (even if they could solve their collective-action problems). At some threshold level
of power imbalance, traditional counterbalancing is no longer a strategic option for other ma-
jor states.
A second set of factors that constrain counterbalancing under conditions of unipolarity is
the specific features of the current global system. These factors reduce the demand for balan-
cing. One is the presence of a large aggregate of democratic great powers. The realist logic
of counterbalancing is ultimately driven by concerns over security and survival in the face of
a dominant state. But there is reason to believe that democracies are less likely to respond to
this logic in their relations with other democracies. The democratic-peace theory holds that
democracies do not tend to see each other as security threats that could lead to war. 15 An
implication of this theory is that power disparities will be less threatening to weaker states
when both the unipolar state and the weaker states are democracies—and so democratic states
will be unlikely to take counter-balancing steps against the unipolar state. Beyond this, liber-
al democracies are also unusually capable of building stable, peaceful, and institutionalized
cooperative relations among themselves—creating what are called security communities. 16
These complex and interdependent political relationships have the effect of further reducing
the demand for full-scale balancing. 17
As noted earlier, one of the striking features of the contemporary international system is
the predominance of democratic great powers. The vast bulk of wealth and military power is
in the hands of advanced democratic states that are tied to the United States in tightly bound
economic, political, and security relationships. In 1992, the United States, France, Germany,
Great Britain, and Japan possessed 96 percent of GNP held by the traditional great powers. 18
Russia and China had—and continue to have—substantially less economic capacity than the
aggregate of the advanced democracies. The implication is that a coalition of major states is
simply not available—states with sufficient worries about unipolarity—to organize a balan-
cing response.
Another feature of the contemporary international system is the presence of nuclear
weapons, which alters the logic of balance. The fact that most of the great powers have nuc-
lear weapons changes the nature of threats posed by concentrated power in two ways. First,