This dissertation “To Balance the World: The Development of the U.S. National Interest, 1935 – 1963” traces the transfer of American geopolitical thinking from military intellectuals inside the War Department in the 1930s to university defense intellectuals who began to set strategic agendas in the 1950s and 1960s. I study the concept of balance of power not as an idea or a theory but as an ideology in the Cold War through the twin rise of the military intellectual and the defense intellectual as policymakers. I argue the balance of power ideology animated the thinking of international lawyer Frederick Sherwood Dunn and U.S. geostrategist Nicholas Spykman in the 1920s and 1930s; political scientist Arnold Wolfers in the 1940s; career U.S. Army officer and strategic planner George A. Lincoln in the 1950s; and defense intellectual Henry Kissinger in the 1950s/1960s as they crafted national security policy. I work against the presumption that grand strategy serves as an intellectual architecture for policymaking. Rather, I argue grand strategy is a closed ideological circuit determined by a “strategic field” of planners and practitioners consisting of individuals like Dunn, Spykman, Wolfers, Lincoln, and Kissinger. Retired general disarmament activist Tasker A. Bliss served as an important and early voice of dissent to the balance of power ideology in the interwar period. The balance of power ideology, the belief that a single powerful state maintained the balance between states, guided their discussions as they agreed on the U.S. assuming responsibilities to guarantee international order and stability from the British Empire. Over the decades, balance of power colored their perceptions of any changes or transformations within the international system. “Order” and “stability” were their watchwords. Grand strategy subsequently serves as the “laboratory” for national interest. The balance of power ideology led to the strategic field’s adoption of survival as the U.S. national interest. The strategic field subsequently employed limited war as the policy of choice to “preserve” the United States’ survival. My findings highlight the antidemocratic principles within the design of grand strategy, particularly as they relate to the unequal power dynamic between the military-academic nexus and the U.S. public. / 2026-03-26T00:00:00Z

This thesis provides a contextualised exegesis and re-evaluation of the anarchist Pierre- Joseph Proudhon's writings on war and peace. The thesis has two claims to originality. The first lies in shedding new light on Proudhon's voluminous writings on international politics. These texts have been relatively marginalised in the broader secondary literature on Proudhon's thinking, and the thesis seeks to correct this important lacuna. In International Relations (IR), the academic discipline to which this thesis will make its most obvious original contribution, Proudhon's writings on war and peace have been almost completely ignored. By providing an anarchist approach to world politics, the thesis will also contribute to IR's historiographical and critical theoretical literature. The second claim to originality lies in using these writings and the context from which they emerged to tell a story about the evolution of the nineteenth century, the origins of the twentieth century and provide possible ways of thinking beyond the twenty first. The thesis employs a contextualist methodology that works in four ways. First, I have contextualised Proudhon's thought geo-politically, in relation to the dynamics of the balance of power in nineteenth-century Europe. Secondly, I have sought to understand Proudhon's ideas against the backdrop of the evolution of the French nation state in the mid to late nineteenth century. Third, I have shown how Proudhon's thought emerges out of the dominant intellectual currents of his day – ideas that range from the inspiration for the activism of Fourierist and Saint-Simonian feminists, to the epochal influence of Rousseau and Kant. Finally, I argue that Proudhon's thinking on world politics needs to be understood in relation to the evolution of his own thinking after Napoleon III's coup d'état of the 2nd of December 1851. I will show that Proudhon's mature anarchism, his mutualist federalism, was an engaged response to each of these social and intellectual contexts. I will argue that his critiques of these processes, and their intellectual champions, have been given an added poignancy given that he campaigned in large part against those very processes that culminated in two world wars.

L’objet de ce travail de thèse est d’élucider la dynamique des relations internationales à l’Age classique, depuis les traités de Westphalie (1648) jusqu’à la bataille de Valmy (1792). Les conflits qui marquent les relations internationales à l’Age classique sont régulièrement qualifiés par les historiens militaires de « limités » et d’« indécis ». Or, il faut élucider les raisons et la nature de cette limitation. Cette limitation est double : les guerres de l’Age classique sont d’abord limitées pour des raisons politiques, « l’équilibre des puissances » fonctionnant comme un cadre juridique régulateur ; les guerres sont ensuite limitées pour des raisons militaires, la guerre classique était fondée sur une stratégie d’usure et une tactique de position. Plus importante que la mise au jour de ces limitations, est leur articulation causale. Pour élucider ce problème, nous avons proposé une grille d’analyse que nous avons appelé « quadrangle des relations internationales », et qui permet d’étudier, pour n’importe quelle époque, les dimensions ontologiques, politiques, stratégiques et tactiques, de ces relations. La dimension ontologique questionne la nature des acteurs politiques dans un système politique donné : comment l’Etat territorial souverain s’est-il imposé comme forme d’organisation politique centrale ? La dimension politique analyse ensuite le cadre dans lequel se meuvent les unités du système : comment s’est imposé peu à peu l’équilibre des puissances comme mode de régulation de la politique internationale ? La dimension stratégique explicite le plan des campagnes des chefs d’Etats : comment expliquer que la stratégie des Etats ait été fondée sur la défensive et l’usure ? La dimension tactique enfin, scrute les modes opératoires de cette stratégie : comment procèdent sièges et manœuvres à l’Age classique ? Chacune de ces dimensions s’enchaîne causalement de manière à renouer avec une « histoire globale », allant des strates mentales à la stratégie des acteurs. / This PhD work aims at analyzing the dynamics of international relations from the Westphalia (1648) treaties to the battle of Valmy (1792). Classic conflicts are regularly qualified by military historians as being ‘‘limited’’ and ‘‘indecisive’’, and it is therefore necessary to elucidate the reasons and the nature of such restrictions. Limitations are actually two-fold: classic wars are politically limited, regulated by a legal framework known as “balance of powers”. As a consequence, wars are also militarily limited, often described as being mitigated by a strategy of attrition and tactics of position. More important than the acknowledgment of this limitation, is the way they are linked together. So as to shed light on such dynamics, we’ve built an analytical framework called “quadrangle of international relations’’, allowing to decipher their ontological, political, strategic and tactic dimensions, in any period of time. Ontology questions the nature of the actors in any given political system: how did the territorial sovereign state become the main form of political organization? The political dimension of this model allows analyzing the legal framework in which foreign relations take place: how did balance of powers become the main way of regulating violence between states? Its strategic angle scrutinizes the military plans of state leaders: how could a defensive strategy based on attrition warfare be accounted for? tactical aspects develop the operating instructions designed to support strategy: what did sieges and maneuvers look like in classic wars? Each of these dimensions is causally linked to one another so that we could revive “global history”, from mental layers to the actors’ strategies.

Conservative international thought in Victorian Britain is a prominent landmark in the landscape of international thought which has up to now gone unmapped. In illuminating this body of thought, the thesis addresses weaknesses present in three different historiographies. As the first detailed study of conservative international thought in Victorian Britain, the thesis rectifies a marked bias in Victorian intellectual history towards the study of liberal and radical thought. Furthermore, by analysing the political thought of major representatives of the conservative educated classes, this thesis provides context for the history of conservative high politics, thereby leading us to view these in a different light. Finally, this study, by providing a historically nuanced account of the evolution of major themes of international relations theory in mid-Victorian Britain, functions as a corrective to the self-history of the academic field of International Relations. The thesis makes its argument by analysing conservative contributions in periodicals, pamphlets, and newspapers to British public debates on international affairs, from the Crimean War (1854-56) until the Eastern Question crisis of 1876-80. The general claim of this thesis is that there existed a distinctly conservative perspective on the international sphere. The core elements of this conservative perspective were the primacy of statesmen in setting foreign policy; of interests, military force, and stature in determining the course of international politics; and of order and equilibrium as its normative content. Conservative authors used this constellation of ideas in the major debates of the mid-Victorian era on international affairs, both as a means to make sense of events, and as a counterpoint to liberal narratives - with which Victorian international thought is all too often identified. In recovering the international political thought of Victorian conservatives, this thesis illuminates an important but neglected aspect of how international relations were understood and conceptualised in mid-Victorian Britain.

Žvelgiant iš kelių šimtų metų istorinės perspektyvos, Vakarų pusrutulis yra Jungtinių Amerikos Valstijų dominuojama teritorija bei jos strateginių interesų vieta. Tačiau, XXI a. pastebimas JAV santykinės galios mažėjimas. Be to, 2001 m. rugsėjo 11–osios įvykiai sąlyginai pakoregavo pagrindinius JAV užsienio politikos prioritetus ir nukreipė pastarosios dėmesį į kitus pasaulio regionus (Artimieji Rytai ir Vidurinioji Azija). O tam tikru atsiradusiu įtakos vakuumu Lotynų Amerikos regione ganėtinai aktyviai pradėjo naudotis kitos valstybės. Viena iš aktyviausių – Brazilija – kaip sparčiai kylanti vidutinė galybė siekia tapti suvienytos Pietų Amerikos lydere. Brazilija stengiasi atsverti Jungtinių Valstijų įtaką regione bei pasisako už tarptautinio valdymo struktūrų reformas (JTO Saugumo Tarybos). Nepaisant to, remiantis istorine patirtimi, Jungtinės Valstijos yra linkusios užsitikrinti savo nacionalinių interesų įgyvendinimą savomis priemonėmis. Šio darbo objektas – Jungtinių Amerikos Valstijų ir Brazilijos galios dinamika bei užsienio politikos iniciatyvos, orientuotos į įtakos didinimą Lotynų Amerikoje. Pagrindinis darbo tikslas – išanalizuoti Braziliją, kaip iššūkį Jungtinių Valstijų dominavimui Vakarų pusrutulyje bei aptarti JAV atsaką, siekiant išsaugoti savo, kaip lyderės, pozicijas. Siekiant įgyvendinti užsibrėžtą tikslą, darbo eigoje buvo įvykdyti tokie išsikelti uždaviniai – remiantis tarptautinių santykių teorijomis, aptartos galios, galios balanso ir kylančios... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / Looking from a few hundred years of historical perspective, the Western Hemisphere is being dominated by United States of America. In the twenty-first century, however, one can say it is quite noticeable decline in the United States relative power. In addition, the September 11 events have relatively adjusted major U.S. foreign policy priorities and fostered to focus its attention on other regions of the world (particularly Middle East and Middle Asia). Along these lines, a kind of vacuum of influence that has left afterwards in the Latin America has been actively used by other states. One of the most assertive, Brazil, has lots of aspirations to fill and consolidate the regional leadership and thus become a leader of more united and integrated South America. As a rapidly emerging middle power, Brazil tries to counterbalance the U.S. influence in the region and calls for reforms of a particular international governance structures (for example, the UN Security Council). Nevertheless, the United States usually is prone to secure its own national interests by implementation of its own measures. The general subject of this work is the power dynamics of United States and Brazil and their foreign policy initiatives oriented towards keeping or increasing influence in Latin America. The aim of this thesis is to analyze Brazil as a challenge to the United States dominance in Western Hemisphere and to evaluate the U.S. response, in order to maintain their leadership. Seeking to achieve... [to full text]

Teilw. zugl.: Darmstadt, Techn. Univ., Diss., 2005

Thesis (M.S. in National Security Affairs)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2005. / Thesis Advisor(s): Peter Lavoy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-75). Also available online.

Dissertation (Ph.D. in Security Studies)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2010. / Dissertation supervisor: Knopf, Jeffrey. "March 2010." Description based on title screen as viewed on April 28, 2010. Author(s) subject terms: Reassurance Strategy, Deterrence Strategy, Contingent Generalizations, "Structured, Focused Comparison," Level of Analysis, Tit-for-Tat, GRIT, Leader's Perceptions, Domestic Politics, Alliance Politics, Balance of Power, Interdependence, Identity, Motivating Factors, South Korea, North Korea, Sunshine Policy, Six-Party Talks, Gorbachev, Reagan, the End of the Cold War. Includes bibliographical references (p. 474-516). Also available in print.

Russian-Chinese relations have been differed by the complex and full relations, which have been highly emerged since the end of the Cold War. Transition of the power in the world system had overcome the intention of Russia and China for the closer cooperation in order to decline the American sole hegemony. Concluding the Friendship treaty, it had become the first step towards cooperation which today can be considered as stable one. Master thesis will be focused on the realist approach, which at the same time will help to evaluate Rusian-Chinese relation through the pragmatic realist prism. Analyzing the relations in a global context within further movement to regional one, I will try to experience Sino-Russian relations through different approaches and relying on the balance of power theory. Description of the strategic partnership, supported by the multipolar world view and multilateral diplomacy as the tool for the national interests promotion, the research will move towards bilateral modes estimating security, political and economic relations. All in all, the conclusion will be made in order to predict the future of the Russian-Chinese relations and results which both countries have achieved by now.

Dans le cadre d'une recherche empirique sur les styles de jeu des différentes nations en volley-ball, nous avons recueilli des données sur diverses compétitions internationales. Notre objectif était de modéliser et rationaliser notre activité à travers la construction d'un outil de feedback vidéo qui nous a permis d'analyser le rapport d'opposition entre deux équipes. Le but n'est pas de décrire comment joue une équipe, sans considérer l'adversaire, mais de lier les systèmes de jeu des deux équipes, offensifs ou défensifs, compte tenu de leurs effets sur l'adversaire. C'est ce qu'on appelle le rapport d'opposition. Comme le montre Deleplace (1979) dans sa modélisation du rugby, c'est en analysant le rapport d'opposition que l'on peut expliquer et comprendre l'essence de l'activité. Pour cette étude, nous avons choisi de construire un nouveau modèle d'analyse en adoptant une procédure technologique (Bouthier & Durey, 1994 ; Éloi & Uhlrich, 2011 ; Uhlrich, Éloi & Bouthier, 2011). Cela nous permettra de considérer le rapport d'opposition comme le premier indicateur de performance. Notre objectif est de déterminer la norme du volley-ball lors des Jeux Olympiques de Rio en 2016 au travers de l'analyse du rapport d'opposition. Dans cette perspective, nous choisissons d'utiliser le logiciel Sportscode qui est un méta-logiciel, c'est-à-dire un logiciel qui permet de créer des logiciels. La conception du logiciel créé par ce méta-logiciel facilite l'analyse de la performance en permettant une visualisation aisée des séquences vidéo prédéterminées par l'entraîneur, en direct ou après le match.Les résultats de cette étude nous montrent qu'il est possible d'identifier la norme du volley-ball à un moment précis de son histoire. De cette manière, il sera alors possible de comparer les différentes équipes entre elles et de déterminer leur style de jeu, mais également d'analyser les différentes façons de jouer au travers de son histoire. / As part of an empirical research on the playing styles of different nations in volleyball, we collected data on various international competitions. Our goal was to model and rationalize our activity through the construction of a video feedback tool that allowed us to analyze the momentum between two teams. The purpose is not to describe how play a team, without considering the opponent, but to link the game systems of the two teams, offensive or defensive, considering their effects on the opponent. This is called “momentum” (or balance of power). As shown by Deleplace (1979) in his rugby modeling, it is by analyzing the momentum that we can explain and understand the essence of the activity.For this study, we choose to build a new analysis model adopting a technological procedure (Bouthier & Durey, 1994; Éloi & Uhlrich, 2011; Uhlrich, Éloi & Bouthier, 2011). It will allow us to consider the momentum as the first performance indicator. Our goal is to determine the standard of volleyball during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games through the analysis of the momentum. In this perspective, we choose to use the software Sportscode which is a meta software, i.e., a software to make software. The design of the software created by this meta software facilitates the analysis of the performance by allowing an easy viewing of the video instances predetermined by coach, during live or after the game.The results of this study show us that it is possible to identify the international volleyball standard at a specific moment in its history. In this way, it will be possible to compare the different teams between them and determine their style of play, but also to analyze the different ways of playing through its history.