The Dynamics of Competing Logics

According to realist theories of international politics, “the logic of world politics”³

should be characterized by checks and balances. It is argued that attempts at domination are necessarily blocked by “two of the most powerful regularities in international politics: the balance of power and the rising costs of expansion.”⁴ The first countervailing mechanism is most notably represented by Kenneth Waltz, who argues that the instinct for survival in international anarchy “stimulates states to behave in ways that tend toward the creation of balance of power.”⁵ As Jack Levy elaborates, “the balancing mechanism almost always works successfully to avoid hegemony” because “[s]tates with expansionist ambitions are either deterred by the anticipation of blocking coalitions or beaten back by the formation of such coalitions.”⁶

The second checking mechanism is best described by Robert Gilpin, who argues that “large-scale territorial conquest and empire building [are] prohibitively expensive.”⁷

This is because “as a state increases its control over an international system, it begins at some point to encounter both increasing costs of further expansion and diminishing returns from further expansion.”⁸ Beyond the point at which marginal costs exceed marginal benefits, expansion will become overexpansion and the conquering state will bring about its own ruin. Among the various costs of expansion, the most central is the “loss-of-strength gradient,” or the degree to which a state's military and political power diminishes as the state attempts to influence other states and events farther away from its home base.⁹ This gradient essentially means that long-distance campaigns—which attempts at universal domination necessarily involve—are almost always bad moves. Even when expansion succeeds, conquest entails administration of conquered territories and resistant populations, which frequently “constitute[s] an economic drain on the economy of the dominant state.”¹⁰

Although realists disagree over which mechanism is more important, they tend to see both mechanisms as structural and largely immutable to human efforts. Realists essentially presume that negative feedback is the rule in international politics—that is, that any deviation from equilibrium automatically sets in motion countervailing forces to reestablish it.¹¹

As Waltz argues, “a balance, once disrupted, will be restored in one way or another.”¹² In this mainstream perspective, the possibility of alternative trajectories and endogenous transformation is thus ruled out by fiat. It is true that constructivists and liberals pay more attention to agency as opposed to structural determinism, and change as opposed to continuity. However, these theorists are only interested in normative transformation; the issue of coercive transformation is not on their agenda. Despite Alexander Wendt's caution that “institutions may be cooperative or conflictual,” many constructivists have continued to “equate institutions with cooperation.”¹³ Paradoxically, then, although constructivists and liberals disagree with realists on many theoretical and methodological issues, they share the same disregard for the problematique of domination.¹⁴

To examine the dynamism of international politics, theories of international relations should pay more attention to strategic thinking. Thomas Schelling argues in a seminal work in 1960 that the political environment should be treated as a process of strategic interaction rather than a parametric constant.¹⁵

Although the strategic-interactive perspective came to be sidelined by Waltz's structural realism in the field of international relations, this view has persisted in other fields within political science¹⁶ and has recently experienced a resurgence in international analyses.¹⁷ Interestingly, despite his explicit dismissal of strategies and statecraft, Waltz in fact defines “external balancing” as “moves to strengthen and enlarge one's own alliance or to weaken and shrink an opposing one.”¹⁸ He even argues that “[w]ith skill and determination structural constraints can sometimes be countered.”¹⁹ In this regard, it is noteworthy that various classical Chinese military texts highlight “the matching of opposites and complementaries one against the other” as the key to victory in international competition.”²⁰ In addition, Robert Jervis points out that disruptions to the balance of power are not always restored because international politics is characterized by both negative feedback and positive feedback.²¹ Positive feedback refers to the phenomenon whereby a change in one direction sets in motion reinforcing pressures that produce further change in the same direction.²² Although IR scholars often slight positive feedback, various comparativists have amply demonstrated how small differences in power distribution can be exacerbated through path dependence over time.²³

Building on these insights, I argue that the “logic of world politics” should be understood as the “dynamics of competing logics.” In essence, I argue that international competition should be seen as strategic interaction between domination-seekers and targets of domination who employ competing strategies and who are simultaneously facilitated and obstructed by competing causal mechanisms. On the one hand, targets of domination are protected by the “logic of balancing,” which involves the mechanisms of balance of power and rising costs of expansion. On the other hand, domination-seekers may pursue the “logic of domination,” which involves counterbalancing strategies, “Machiavellian” tactics, and self-strengthening reforms. In this formulation, recurrent causal mechanisms are not universal laws. As Jon Elster points out, “[t]he distinctive feature of a mechanism is not that it can be universally applied to predict and control social events, but that it embodies a causal chain that is sufficiently general and precise to enable us to locate it in widely different settings.”²⁴

In addition, two elements in the “dynamics of competing logics”—self-strengthening reforms and the balance of power—are simultaneously mechanisms and strategies. They represent causal mechanisms in that they are compelled by international competition, but they also represent strategies in that their success or failure is partly a function of “skill and determination.”

How does the “logic of domination” counter “the logic of balancing”? Waltzian theorists argue that balancing alliances are invariably formed against attempts at domination. However, critics of balance-of-power theory point out that effective balancing does not come about naturally or automatically. Balancing is not a “frictionless, costless activity”; rather, it involves the daunting collective-action problem.²⁵

Although all states want to survive, self-interested states may engage in other strategies that facilitate, rather than check, attempts at domination. The repertoire of such strategies includes distancing (staying away from targets of domination), declaring neutrality, buck-passing (free riding on the balancing efforts of other states), bandwagoning (allying with the domination-seeker), appeasement, and even submission.²⁶ As Randall Schweller highlights, while balancing generates negative feedback, bandwagoning and other strategies generate positive feedback, thereby facilitating the coercive transformation of an international system.²⁷ In addition, domination-seeking states may pursue divide-and-conquer strategies to—as Waltz himself puts it—“weaken and shrink” opposing alliances.²⁸ If domination-seekers follow this course of action, they may minimize the likelihood of having to fight concerted countervailing alliances as well as multifront wars with unallied enemies.

To facilitate divide-and-conquer strategies, domination-seeking states may resort to “Machiavellian” stratagems. In Machiavelli's view, international competition is a game of fraud and treachery. Thus the ambitious prince “should pay no attention to what is just or what is unjust, or to what is kind or cruel, or to what is praiseworthy or shameful.”²⁹

Although the term “Machiavellian” appears Eurocentric, Machiavelli was in fact predated by military strategists in ancient China. Most notably, Sunzi's Art of War, the canon of Chinese military classics, proclaims that “[t]he military is the Way of deceit.”³⁰ Hence, it advises rulers to “conquer with the extraordinary” or employ “techniques of surprise and deception.”³¹ Deceptive tactics work best if targets of domination are self-interested and can be readily tempted by promises of material gains. As the Sunzi suggests, “if [the enemy] seeks benefit then tempt him.”³² In addition to deception, “Machiavellian” tactics may also involve brutality. As Machiavelli explains, “[i]f you do [people] minor damage they will get their revenge; but if you cripple them there is nothing they can do.”³³ In addition to counteracting balancing, the Sunzi understands that stratagems are also useful in reducing the costs of war. As testified by the oft-cited quote “to bring the enemy's army to submit without combat is the highest skill,”³⁴ it is significantly cheaper to win wars with “extraordinary” tactics than to engage in direct confrontation with the enemy.³⁵ It should be noted that, while the pieces of advice in The Prince and the Sunzi may be timeless, the concrete moves that win the game should be tailored to the historical particularities of the actors and circumstances in question.

The second countervailing mechanism of rising costs of expansion is based on the law of diminishing returns—that continued expansion of any organization should eventually face increasing marginal costs and decreasing marginal benefits.³⁶

As implied by the term “law,” this mechanism is often regarded as immutable. However, the costs and benefits that go into the calculus are, in fact, amenable to human manipulation. Most notably, if conquests pay and gains are cumulative, then the costs of war may be seen as high-yield investments. Indeed, in many historical instances, “successful war yielded a clear gain: control over territory—additional land and the associated labor force—that added directly to both economic and political power.”³⁷

To a significant extent, the costs and benefits of war are shaped by the pursuit of self-strengthening reforms. Although the term “self-strengthening” is new to the IR literature, it has some affinity with the familiar concept of “internal balancing.” Kenneth Waltz argues that international competition compels states to make “moves to increase economic capability, to increase military strength, to develop clever strategies.”³⁸

Waltz takes for granted that states make such moves only to balance against attempts at domination. Randall Schweller is thus correct in criticizing neorealism for its status-quo bias.³⁹ As Peter Gourevitch highlights, international politics presents plenty of “opportunity: power, dominion, empire, glory, total security.”⁴⁰ It is not unimaginable that states may exploit their superior military strengths, higher economic capabilities, and cleverer strategies to pursue opportunistic expansion and even to establish domination. I thus prefer the more dynamic term “self-strengthening reforms” to the one-sided term “internal balancing moves.”

The concept of self-strengthening reforms goes beyond that of internal balancing moves. To begin with, the concept provides a theory of the state, which is necessary for a dynamic theory of international politics. Waltzian realists dismiss international analyses that look inside states as “reductionist.”⁴¹

They thus overlook that internal balancing moves necessarily involve mobilization of human and material resources, which is the very subject matter of state formation theorists. As Charles Tilly argues, war and preparation for war involve rulers in extracting the wherewithal of war, which then creates the central organizational structures of states.⁴² The crucial processes of state formation are monopolization of the means of coercion, nationalization of taxation, and bureaucratization of administration. If states seek to “increase military strength” by building national armies, “increase economic capability” by rationalizing and nationalizing taxation, and “develop clever strategies” by establishing meritocratic administration, then they are simultaneously building state capacity.⁴³ State capacity in state-society relations is a critical component of relative capability in interstate relations.⁴⁴ As Tilly observes, “[t]he transformation of states by war, in its turn, alter[s] the stakes of war.”⁴⁵ Domination-seeking states with enhanced administrative capacity are much better at mobilizing war-making resources, solving logistical problems in long-distance campaigns, consolidating conquests, and extracting additional resources from subjugated populations. Moreover, self-strengthening reforms not only help to “increase military strength” and “increase economic capability,” but also to “develop clever strategies.” Machiavellian tactics and divide-and-conquer strategies are better developed under meritocracy than aristocracy. Further, self-strengthened states have less need to form aggressive alliances to achieve the same expansionist goals. They thus have no need to share the spoils of victory, and are less vulnerable to possible defection by bandwagons.

The concept of self-strengthening reforms also differs from internal balancing in that the former provides room for human creativity and historical contingency. Although international competition should compel states to increase their relative capabilities, international competition does not determine how states meet this challenge. If states mobilize additional resources of war by building up administrative capacity, then they are engaged in self-strengthening reforms. But some reform programs may be better than others, thus conferring an advantage upon those with higher administrative capacity. Moreover, as theorists of state formation have pointed out, while war may strengthen states in some cases, war may also weaken states in other cases.⁴⁶

Douglass North and Robert Thomas observe that, although efficient institutions can pay off handsomely in the long term, their establishment involves higher transaction costs in the short term; hence, political leaders often adopt inefficient institutions instead.⁴⁷ In the context of resource mobilization, states may opt to rely on intermediate resource-holders—that is, states may turn to military entrepreneurs to build mercenary armies, international financiers to provide loans and credits, and venal officials to fill administrative positions. While such measures can bring about larger armies and higher revenues for immediate campaigns, these measures may strain fiscal resources, erode central authority, and even damage fighting capability in the long term. As I will elaborate upon later, the use of mercenaries is particularly problematic. First, mercenaries are often prohibitively expensive. Second, reliance on military entrepreneurs makes it impossible for the state to centralize military command and to monopolize the means of coercion. Third, mercenary troops tend to have serious discipline problems. As Paul Kennedy puts it, the use of expensive mercenaries, contraction of unsustainable loans, and sale of public offices are “expedients, easy in the short term but disastrous for the long-term good of the country.”⁴⁸ Hence, I use the label “self-weakening expedients” to refer to internal balancing moves that involve reliance on intermediate resource-holders. The differences between self-strengthening reforms and self-weakening expedients are summarized in Table 1.

To sum up, I argue that international competition should be seen as processes of strategic interaction between domination-seekers and targets of domination. While attempts at domination are hindered by the countervailing mechanisms of balance of power and rising costs of expansion, domination-seekers may overcome them by pursuing divide-and-conquer strategies, ruthless tactics, and self-strengthening reforms. As self-strengthening reforms fundamentally shape relative capabilities and relative costs of war, they constitute the most crucial mechanism propelling the coercive transformation of an international system. In a system where self-strengthened states pursue opportunistic expansion by resorting to counterbalancing strategies and Machiavellian tactics, domination is not at all impossible. On the other hand, in a system where domination-seekers adopt self-weakening expedients instead of self-strengthening reforms, and do not ruthlessly pursue divide-and-conquer strategies and Machiavellian tactics, then conquest will be difficult and system maintenance will be more likely. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that one should not push such “predictions” too far. Processes of strategic interaction allow for multiple equilibria that may be unpredictable a priori. While one can make an educated guess that the stronger side in any competition is more likely to win, actual outcomes are dependent on the strategic interplays between domination-seekers and targets, and between coercive mechanisms and countervailing mechanisms. This is another way to say that one should examine historical contexts.

The Ancient Chinese System

Waltz is right to expect similar “substantive and stylistic characteristics” in the ancient Chinese system.⁶²

The rise and decline of five domination-seeking states—Chu, Qi (in two different eras), Jin, Wu, and Wei—fit nicely into a combined picture of Waltzian balance of power and Gilpinian costs of expansion. (See Maps 1, 2, and 3.) In the beginning of the Spring and Autumn period, Chu, a southern state, was the first to emerge hegemonic. As Chu sought expansion into the central plain area in the early to mid-seventh century b.c., it was checked by a Qi-led alliance in 656 b.c. (which marked the onset of the ancient Chinese system). Qi soon declined as a result of internal power struggles. But Jin then emerged to check Chu in 632 b.c. In the ensuing century, the Jin and Chu camps were engaged in a tug-of-war and unable to subjugate each other. The two sides finally reached a peace agreement in 546 b.c. But this Jin-Chu balance did not last long. Wu, Chu's southeastern neighbor, rose in power and managed to capture Chu's capital in 506 b.c.⁶³ Wu, in turn, suffered from overexpansion and was even conquered by its own southeastern neighbor, Yue, in 473 b.c. But Yue soon stayed out of great-power competition and focused its attention on neighboring weak states. Another great power, Jin, was split by three ruling clans into Han, Wei, and Zhao in 453 b.c. In the ensuing Warring States period, Wei was the first state to emerge hegemonic, and then attempted to subjugate its neighbors. But Wei's expansion into Zhao in 354–352 b.c. and Han in 344–340 b.c. brought about Qi's interference and decisive defeats. Qi's own attempt at domination, in turn, was thwarted by an anti-Qi alliance in 284 b.c. In short, for more than three centuries, ambitious domination-seekers rose but fell, attempts at domination were made but checked, balancing as a foreign policy was pursued, and balances in the distribution of relative capabilities occurred at various times.⁶⁴

This scenario of relative stability was gradually disrupted as Qin embarked on what I call the “logic of domination” from 356 b.c. onward. Before then, however, Qin was weaker than other great powers. For centuries, Qin generally pursued a defensive foreign policy. It may even be said that Qin performed the role of the “balancer” during the rivalries between Jin and Chu from 632 to 546 b.c.—as both sides actively sought Qin's alliance—and between Chu and Wu in 505 b.c.—as Qin saved Chu from conquest by Wu. Moreover, Qin was badly beaten and lost large tracts of strategic territory on the west bank of the Yellow River to Wei (a successor state of Jin) in the period 419–385 b.c. Nevertheless, the conjuncture of early weakness and late development also carried advantages. When Qin proclaimed in the mid-fourth century b.c. that it pursued aggressive reforms and strategies merely to restore Qin's place among great powers,⁶⁵

the claim was relatively credible. More importantly, late development could bring about the “advantage of backwardness.”⁶⁶ Qin's rulers could draw from the large repertoire of self-strengthening measures and ruthless tactics that had been well practiced by other great powers through the centuries. While Qin's reforms and strategies were not entirely new, Qin's theoreticians adapted old models to changing circumstances and “put them into practice more systematically than had any of [its] precursors.”⁶⁷

Qin's self-strengthening reforms, introduced from 356 b.c. onward, were modeled on various fuguo qiangbing (rich country and strong army) programs of previous domination-seekers, especially those of Wei. But Qin's reforms surpassed others in terms of comprehensiveness and institutionalization. To “develop clever strategies,” Qin strictly applied the principle of meritocracy and completely eradicated the nobility from the administration. Most notably, Qin established an administrative hierarchy of prefectures, counties, townships, and villages that allowed the Qin court to penetrate deep into the society down to individual households. With this unprecedented capacity for direct rule, Qin could then engage in total mobilization for war. To “increase economic capability,” Qin granted lands to the entire registered male population to encourage productivity, and then taxed almost all wealth above subsistence level.⁶⁸

To “increase military strength,” Qin developed an elite professional force and introduced universal military conscription. To motivate its soldiers, Qin introduced handsome rewards for victories (including lands, honors, and servants) and severe punishments for evasion, desertion, surrender to enemies and losses in war (including torture and death). Qin's rulers and reformers thus seemed to understand Douglas North and Robert Thomas's insight that state policies which “bring social and private rates of return into closer parity” can be highly effective in promoting a state's international competitiveness.⁶⁹

While the originally weaker Qin pursued a defensive policy before 356 b.c., the self-strengthened Qin switched to an offensive policy in the post–356 b.c. period. Although Qin initiated only eleven (or 7 percent) of 161 wars involving great powers in the period 656–357 b.c., it initiated fifty-one (or 54 percent) of ninety-five wars involving great powers in the period 356–221 b.c.⁷⁰

In its aggressive drive for opportunistic expansion, Qin faced the problem of rising costs of expansion. Because it was located in the peripheral west, Qin had to travel long-distance when it conquered eastward. To overcome this countervailing mechanism, Qin proceeded with piecemeal encroachment. It would first seize pieces of territory nearby before projecting its forces further away. Territories taken earlier could then be used as forward bases to facilitate logistics and supplies, to safeguard its rear and sides, and to encircle its targets in future expansionist wars.

As Qin's strength ascended, a hezong or balancing strategy, which called for the uniting of weaker states to resist domination, emerged in the 330s and 320s b.c. However, the neighbors of Qin's victims rarely “flock[ed] to the weaker side” as Waltz would expect.⁷¹

As diplomatic strategist Zhang Yi explained to Qin's king: “Even blood brothers fight over money, the impracticability of the hezong strategy is obvious.”⁷² Indeed, Qin's targets (Chu, Han, Qi, Wei, Yan, and Zhao) were “indifferent to mutual cooperation.”⁷³ They were overwhelmingly concerned with short-term gains and pursued their own opportunistic expansion. They fought bitterly amongst themselves to scramble for territories from weaker neighbors and from one another. As many as twenty-seven (or 28 percent) of the ninety-five wars involving great powers in the period 356–221 b.c. involved mutual attacks among these six states.⁷⁴ The prevalence of mutual aggression simultaneously weakened the balance-of-power mechanism and facilitated Qin's opportunistic expansion. Qin frequently invaded its targets when they were fighting amongst themselves. As states could rarely do well in two-front wars, the phenomenon of mutual aggression offered Qin many opportunities to seize territory with minimal efforts. In addition, the fact that all great powers pursued opportunistic expansion also created the scenario of multiple threats. It was not obvious to statesmen of the time that the rapidly ascending Qin was the most threatening state. This situation was compounded by the fact that Qin's early ascendance was eclipsed by the growth of Qi, which took over the hegemony from Wei in 341 b.c. It was not until 288 b.c. that Qin caught up with Qi. Qin then exploited the scenario of multiple threats and turned hezong efforts against its rival. It was only after Qi was devastated by an anti-Qi alliance in 284 b.c. that Qin emerged as the unmistakable threat. By then, however, the dominoes had already fallen—other powers had been drastically weakened.

On top of the inherent weakness in the balance-of-power mechanism, Qin further pursued a lianheng or divide-and-conquer strategy to forestall hezong alliances from being formed and to break up already formed alliances. To divide and conquer and to minimize the costs of expansion, Qin “was never reluctant to lie in diplomatic meetings, to acquire information on other states by espionage, and to bribe key figures in the courts of other states into collaboration.”⁷⁵

Although there existed a Confucian-Mencian norm arguing that force should be used “only in the name of the righteous tradition of a moral-political order,”⁷⁶ interstate relations of the period were dominated by military strategists who advocated “ruthless amorality.”⁷⁷

For instance, in 341 b.c., Qin tried to take advantage of Wei's crushing defeat by Qi and invaded Wei. As Qin's commander-in-chief was uncertain that he could defeat this formidable foe in a direct confrontation, he invited Wei's commander-in-chief to Qin's camp to negotiate a peace agreement. But Qin's commander captured Wei's commander instead and then seized territory with minimal fighting. Although Wei was originally significantly more powerful than Qin, the Qin-Wei balance of relative capabilities was reversed from then on. Three decades later in 312 b.c., Qin was still weaker than Qi and Chu, the two strongest states at the time. Even worse for Qin, these two powerful states were allied together. Qin's king then offered Chu's king 600 li of territory if the latter would break the alliance with Qi.⁷⁸

Chu readily took the offer but Qin ceded only 6 li. Chu's king was furious and launched two poorly planned revenge campaigns against Qin. However, Chu suffered humiliating defeats while Qi looked on. At the end of this war, Chu even lost 600 li and two cities. Again, the Qin-Chu balance of relative capabilities was reversed.

Moreover, when balancing alliances were formed despite all odds, Qin would use bribery to sow discord among allies or to have competent generals removed. In 247 b.c., Qin was defeated by an alliance under the unified command of a Wei general. To arrest this setback, Qin bribed officials in the Wei court to spread the rumor that the commander-in-chief had ambitions to take over the throne. Wei's king soon dismissed the commander, and the alliance was dissolved. From then on, there was no more effective hezong alliance against Qin.

With weak balancing and strong counterbalancing, Qin's fifty-one expansionist wars in the period 356 to 221 b.c. met with only eight allied responses.⁷⁹

Qin defeated or dissolved five of the anti-Qin alliances. Although three of these alliances defeated Qin, the defeats were not decisive enough to block Qin's rise to domination. On the other hand, Qin won forty-seven (or 92 percent) of the fifty-one wars involving great powers that it initiated, and three of the five wars in which it was the target.⁸⁰ As Qin scored victory after victory, various great powers were successively defeated one after another. Han and Wei lost the great-power status after Qin annihilated their elite troops in 293 b.c. An anti-Qi alliance crushed the once-hegemonic Qi in 284 b.c. Chu faced a fatal blow in 279 b.c. when Qin seized the western half of its territory. The peripheral Yan was relatively weak compared with other great powers for most of the Warring States period.

Nevertheless, Zhao still had the capability to resist Qin. Unfortunately, Zhao's experience testified to the prevalence of opportunistic expansion, the weakness of the balance of power, and the effectiveness of stratagems. Although Zhao launched a military reform and established an independent cavalry in 307 b.c., it did not use its increased military strength to balance against Qin. As Qin encroached on other neighbors, Zhao pursued its own territorial ambitions, including conquest of the medium-sized state Zhongshan and expansion in the northern frontiers. When Qin planned a massive invasion of Chu in 279 b.c. and asked for a peace agreement with Zhao to avoid a rear attack, Zhao agreed despite the fact that since 284 b.c., Qin had emerged as the unmistakable threat to all states. Zhao eventually fought Qin only when Qin attacked it in 262 b.c.⁸¹

With fearsome armies, Zhao was able to resist Qin's invasion. Unable to subjugate Zhao by force even after two years, Qin then bribed high officials in the Zhao court to have the capable commander-in-chief dismissed. Zhao thus suffered a crushing defeat in 260 b.c.

It may be said that, after repeated defeats by Qin, other states should have increasingly understood that their survival was seriously at stake. In such a situation, IR scholars would expect Qin's targets to overcome the collective-action problem and engage in more effective balancing.⁸²

As Kenneth Waltz puts it, “balance of power politics prevail wherever two, and only two, requirements are met: that the order be anarchic and that it be populated by units wishing to survive.”⁸³ However, successful balancing is not a simple function of the wish to survive. States may not balance against a threat if they see that such a strategy is “futile and counterproductive.”⁸⁴ At the end of the Qin-Zhao war in 257 b.c., Qin managed to occupy about half of the territory in the system (see Figure 4). From then on, even the combined capabilities of all the six states would no longer match that of Qin.⁸⁵ It is thus not surprising that Han Fei, who witnessed the last decades of the Warring States period, had no faith in the balance-of-power strategy: “Joining the lianheng alliance means prostrating oneself before the might of Qin, and states that routinely prostrate themselves find their territory pared down until nothing is left. On the other hand, joining the hezong alliance means rescuing impotent states that are about to be annexed by Qin, and states that routinely rescue their impotent neighbors find their own strength weakened until their armies are defeated.”⁸⁶

Waltz also argues that “states tend to emulate the successful policies of others.”⁸⁷

If international competition could compel states to pursue self-strengthening reforms—and creative adaptation of successful models indeed occurred for most of the multistate era in ancient China—then why did Qin's targets not emulate Qin's strategies and tactics? In self-strengthening reforms as in effective balancing, the wish to survive is not always matched by the capability to pursue the necessary courses of action. As Elster explains, “when people are badly off their motivation to innovate … is high. Their capacity or opportunity to do so, however, is the lowest when they are in tight circumstances.”⁸⁸ It is particularly noteworthy that Qin's targets had all pursued various elements of self-strengthening reforms during Qin's early ascendance, but all except Zhao had been badly beaten by the time Qin became the unmistakable threat in 284 b.c. Compared with rising powers, declining states would have more difficulty playing the game of catching up. Qi, for instance, retreated into isolationism in 284 b.c. after it lost the great-power—as well as hegemonic—status. Qin further weakened the six states' capabilities to renew their strengths by adopting a policy of “attacking not only territory but also people.”⁸⁹ At each victory, Qin would seize territory and kill enemy soldiers en masse so that losing states could not easily recover. With ever-widening gaps in relative capabilities, it became increasingly futile for Qin's targets to pursue meaningful buildups. Han and Wei, in particular, became so demoralized that they followed a self-defeating policy of appeasement, ceding pieces of territory without fighting.

While Qin pursued a strategy of piecemeal encroachment during its rise to domination, it switched to swift conquests in 236 b.c. when the conditions for unification seemed ripe. Qin's strategist Li Si advised King Zheng that “the states now listen to Qin as if they were our prefectures and counties. Qin's strength and your honor's competence are enough to annihilate the states to build an empire. This is a rare opportunity in history. If Qin still proceeds slowly, then the states may recover and form another hezong alliance. When that happens, even your competence will not suffice for unification.”⁹⁰

In mapping out a grand strategy for the final wars of unification, Li Si understood that other states, facing imminent death, would fiercely resist Qin. To preempt last-minute balancing efforts, Qin complemented military campaigns with handsome bribes. In their final struggles for survival, therefore, Qin's targets could only resort to “self-help”—in the literal sense of self-reliance—by mobilizing their entire (adult and teenage, male and female) populations, rather than the Waltzian sense of balancing. Fighting alone, they were conquered one after another.

But how did Qin swallow whole, sovereign territorial states on its march toward universal domination? This is an important question because the last effective check against domination is often the inability of conquerors to consolidate conquests. As noted above, a dynamic theory of international politics requires a theory of state formation. Qin's total conquests were significantly facilitated by its superior administrative capacity. At the same time, although other states had less centralized authority and were thus less capable of mobilizing resources and resisting Qin's stratagems, all of them had developed relatively coherent administrative and coercive apparatuses. As Niccolo Machiavelli and Max Weber observed two millennia later, impersonal, hierarchical administration—as opposed to the personal, decentralized authority of the feudal era—would facilitate wholesale takeovers.⁹¹

As Qin swept across the ancient Chinese system, it was able to turn conquered states into new prefectures and counties. Furthermore, the earlier strategy of piecemeal encroachment not only minimized the costs of expansion, but also facilitated final conquests. By the time Qin launched the wars of unification in 236 b.c., Han and Wei had been reduced to the size of single prefectures; Chu and Zhao had also been cut by about half compared with their heydays. Qin was then able to vanquish Han in 230 b.c., Zhao in 228 b.c., Wei in 225 b.c., Chu in 223 b.c., Yan in 222 b.c., and Qi in 221 b.c. Soon afterward, King Zheng established the Qin Dynasty and proclaimed himself the “First Emperor.”⁹²

The Early Modern European System

Knowledge of the ancient Chinese system may now be used to construct a “counterfactual Europe” so as to rethink the early modern European system. In light of the triumph of domination in ancient China, why was the multistate system preserved in early modern Europe? Bin Wong points out that “[t]he comparative historical perspective reveals an element of contingency that reflects the incompleteness of European patterns of … change.”⁹³

Is it possible that European attempts at domination were, paradoxically, inadequate? Machiavelli advised at the onset of the early modern period that domination-seekers should combine the strength of the lion and the wit of the fox.⁹⁴ Did European kings and princes heed his words? Among various coercive tools in the “logic of domination,” European domination-seekers widely practiced counterbalancing strategies, but they came late in the pursuit of self-strengthening reforms and rarely employed ancient-Chinese-style ruthless tactics against one another.⁹⁵ It is true that European rulers engaged in widespread subversion and even assassinations—as did the ancient Chinese. But Europeans rarely blatantly violated diplomatic norms without decent excuses, and they certainly never engaged in mass slaughter of defeated troops. As discussed above, cunning and brutish tactics were critical to Qin's ability to divide and conquer, minimize war costs, overcome relative weakness early on, and prevent other states from catching up after it achieved hegemony. ⁹⁶ It is unlikely that Qin could have achieved domination without such tactics; hence, it is quite plausible that their extremely rare use weakened the “logic of domination” in Europe. Moreover, while European domination-seekers did play the divide-and-conquer game, they also made themselves heavily reliant on the strengths of allies to achieve their ambitions. They ignored Machiavelli's observation that “auxiliaries” or allied troops were “useless and dangerous.”⁹⁷

Even more importantly, the earliest domination-seekers in Europe adopted self-weakening expedients rather than self-strengthening reforms. In ancient China, the earliest domination-seeking rulers of Chu, Qi, and Jin gradually built up their administrative capacity, expanded their armies from their own populations, promoted agricultural productivity as the basis of national wealth, and consolidated their control over conquered territories. Such early measures increasingly deepened over time, culminating in Qin's total mobilization for war in the fourth and third centuries b.c. In contrast, their counterparts in early modern Europe, France and the United Habsburgs, relied on intermediate resource-holders. To build larger armies, the French court and the Habsburg house did not improve their extractive capacities to mobilize national armies; instead, they relied on military entrepreneurs to establish mercenary armies. Although it was possible to build numerically stronger armies this way, Machiavelli had already observed that mercenary troops, as with allied forces, exhibited “cowardice” and were “useless” in terms of fighting capability.⁹⁸

Mercenary troops could not be trusted to engage in tactical maneuvering, and quasi-independent military entrepreneurs could not be trusted to support one another. Wars were therefore “limited in a very real sense—namely in the restricted ability of armed forces to carry out the grand strategic or political aims ordered by their rulers.”⁹⁹

Mercenary armies were also extremely expensive in terms of costs. When the use of mercenaries was combined with the use of artillery, the costs of war became so high that both the French court and the Habsburg house were constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ordinary revenues only “dribbled in small amounts throughout the year”¹⁰⁰

and so could not meet the monthly bills demanded by military entrepreneurs. When rulers could not pay—which happened often—mercenary armies would mutiny and military entrepreneurs would surrender to the enemy. To raise higher revenues, the French court and the Habsburg house did not reform their tax structures; instead, they turned to contraction of loans and sale of offices. Having little faith that kings and princes would repay their principals and interests in full, capital-holders typically demanded that rulers sign away both the yield and the administration of future ordinary revenues for years on end.¹⁰¹ Hence, while such fiscal expedients no doubt provided ready cash for immediate campaigns, they further alienated future ordinary revenues and dragged these states into ever-escalating fiscal crises in the long term. The sale of offices also created structural corruption, as venal officials were in privileged positions to pocket significant portions of the national wealth. The sale of offices further complicated efforts to develop clever strategies and stratagems, as clever ideas had lower chances of getting adopted and implemented in a venal system than in a meritocratic system.

Together, the use of costly mercenaries, contraction of unsustainable loans, and sale of public offices fundamentally undermined—if not negated—efforts to increase relative capabilities. Although European domination-seeking states generally could win wars against weaker neighbors, these states rarely could consolidate conquered territories. Moreover, as great powers did not have the administrative capacity to mobilize resources from their own populations, they also could not make conquests pay. Because even the most powerful states had severe difficulty mobilizing the resources of war, securing decisive victories, and consolidating conquests, international competition was significantly tempered in early modern Europe. Wars thus “repeatedly ended in restoration of either the status quo or a close approximation of it,”¹⁰²

and survival was rarely at stake except for small political units that were not recognized as sovereign territorial states.

If self-weakening expedients hindered domination while self-strengthening reforms would have facilitated it, then why did European rulers adopt self-weakening expedients? It is noteworthy that Charles VII of France had embarked on nascent self-strengthening reforms before the onset of the early modern period. During the Hundred Years' War, France was so severely beaten that Charles VI accepted the king of England as his heir before he died in 1422. But the Dauphin Charles did not relinquish his claim to the throne. In his struggle to reclaim France, Charles VII established the first standing army in Europe, the Compagnies d'Ordonnance (twenty companies of heavy cavalry formed by French knights in 1445). He also imposed drastic increases in direct and indirect taxes. If France had carried forward such self-strengthening measures, then the European trajectory might have been more similar to the ancient Chinese trajectory.

However, Charles' policy package included other elements that were to have lasting consequences. France had earlier adopted mercenary forces from England. Charles created the standing cavalry, but mercenaries continued to serve in the infantry. Equally importantly, Charles adopted an earlier French practice of selling public offices.¹⁰³

When Charles's successors set their ambitions on Italy in 1494, they turned to the easier measures that involved reliance on intermediate resource-holders, rather than the harder measures that would have required administrative reforms to improve the court's extractive capacity. Although the self-weakening nature of various expedients became increasingly apparent over time, it also became increasingly difficult to reverse course: sold offices could not be relinquished without huge compensations; and contracted loans could not be redeemed without full payment of principals and interests.¹⁰⁴ Through international competition, moreover, France's self-weakening expedients were spread to other European states, in particular France's top rival, the United Habsburgs. The competition between France and the Habsburgs (first the United Habsburgs and later Habsburg Spain) thus witnessed a peculiar kind of balance of power—one better characterized as balance of relative weaknesses than balance of relative capabilities. As Kennedy puts it, “the two contestants resembled punch-drunk boxers, clinging to each other in a state of near-exhaustion and unable to finish the other off.”¹⁰⁵

This scenario began to change in the mid-seventeenth century, when Brandenburg-Prussia—a late developer less burdened by various self-weakening expedients of established great powers—embarked on internal balancing moves through administrative reforms. Similar to Qin in ancient China, the “little Brandenburg” that was badly exploited in the Thirty Years' War emerged a century later as the “mighty Prussia” that prevailed over Austria in 1740.¹⁰⁶

Russia similarly pursued self-strengthening measures and defeated Sweden in 1709. Faced with the rise of previously weaker states, Austria was also compelled to adopt some self-strengthening measures.¹⁰⁷ As in ancient China, these self-strengthened states in Europe pursued opportunistic expansion and colluded to partition Poland.

International competition became further intensified in the Revolutionary era. The French Revolution overthrew not just the ancien regime, but also centuries-old self-weakening expedients. Revolutionary France could then pursue comprehensive self-strengthening reforms that were common in the late Warring States period but unprecedented in the early modern period: direct rule was installed; universal military conscription was introduced; and taxation was nationalized and rationalized. The introduction of universal military conscription, in particular, allowed France to enjoy multiple advantages of higher fighting capability, larger army size, and much lower war costs. Moreover, the revolutionary principle of meritocracy allowed Napoleon to rise to prominence. Napoleon was a genius not only on the battle front, but also on the diplomatic front. He was able to organize most of Europe for war against a single isolated foe in various instances. With coercive mechanisms and strategies that more closely resembled those in the ancient Chinese system, the Napoleonic Empire was able to sweep through the continent, conquer weaker states, and make conquests pay. At the height of its strength in 1810, Napoleonic France was on the verge of taking Europe onto the ancient-Chinese trajectory.

Nevertheless, even the Napoleonic Empire lived in the shadow of a self-weakened past. The late pursuit of self-strengthening reforms and the legacy of self-weakening expedients stacked the odds against France. First, while Qin enjoyed access to a large repertoire of coercive measures that had been accumulated through several centuries, Revolutionary and Napoleonic France had to innovate them more or less from scratch. Second, Qin's reforms and strategies were not revolutionary but merely surpassed those of other states in terms of comprehensiveness and institutionalization, thus allowing Qin not to appear too threatening for many decades. In contrast, France's revolutionary innovations made it an unmistakable threat to all, thereby triggering a stronger balance-of-power response.¹⁰⁸

Third, ancient Chinese states generally had relatively high levels of administrative capacity, so that Qin could incorporate conquered states as prefectures and counties. But European states typically had much lower levels of administrative capacity, making it harder for the Napoleonic Empire to consolidate conquests. Fourth, Qin pursued opportunistic expansion and final unification by relying on its own national resources. France, on the other hand, was heavily reliant on allies to contribute human and material resources, leaving it highly vulnerable to their defection.¹⁰⁹ Fifth, the heavy reliance on allies for the wherewithal of war also created significant disincentives against the pursuit of Machiavellian tactics—as today's enemies might well become tomorrow's friends. The result was that disbanded Spanish troops could launch a guerrilla war against the French occupation, and Prussia, Russia, and Austria could engage in rapid buildups after they turned against France. This is in sharp contrast to Qin, which did not need allies and could therefore slaughter defeated armies en masse to prevent losing states from making a speedy recovery. Lastly, the early use of mercenaries and the contraction of loans had led Napoleonic France's top rival, Britain, to develop the public credit system at the turn of the eighteenth century. Although the public credit system did not exist in the ancient-Chinese repertoire of self-strengthening reforms, it should be treated as such because it involved enhancement of administrative capacity to directly mobilize resources from the general population. In an international system where “preparation for war [was] a financial question,”¹¹⁰ wealthy Britain enjoyed a significant upper hand over cash-tight France.¹¹¹ Britain could use its immense wealth to lure French allies, thus making France even more vulnerable to the balance-of-power mechanism.¹¹²

While balance-of-power theorists believe that it was the mechanism of balance of power that defeated France, their critics charge that it was the mechanism of overexpansion that brought about Napoleon's demise. For instance, John Vasquez argues that “[b]alancing did not defeat … Napoleon; overexpansion did.”¹¹³

However, this view misses a simple but critical fact: aspirants for universal domination rather than mere hegemony, such as Napoleonic France and Qin, inevitably had to attack bandwagons and neutrals. The question is not whether they should do so, but how to design the grand strategy. In short, neither of the two countervailing mechanisms alone can explain the European outcome; even the two mechanisms together cannot provide a sufficient answer. Rather, it is the conjuncture of weaker coercive mechanisms and strategies on the one hand and stronger balancing mechanisms and strategies on the other that explains the maintenance of checks and balances in Europe.