Balancing, Stability, and War: The Mysterious Case of the Napoleonic International System

We seek to validate four assertions in this article: (1) The threat to the stability of the international system was surely as great during the Napoleonic imperium as it was during the period of Soviet threat, 1945–1989. (2) While actors balanced against the USSR, they did not balance against Napoleonic France, at least until the end (1813–1815). (3) The difference between the two periods cannot be accounted for in the typical manner, by regarding the post-World War II system as “bipolar” and the Napoleonic system as “multipolar”; neither system was “bipolar” in power terms; both, however, were “bipolar” in terms of threat. (4) Therefore, a new explanation is required for the presence or absence of balancing in international relations.