offshore balancing

Christopher Layne{{cite web|last=Layne|first=Christopher|date=2012-04-26|title=The End of Pax Americana: How Western Decline Became Inevitable|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/the-end-of-pax-americana-how-western-decline-became-inevitable/256388/|access-date=2020-10-18|website=The Atlantic|language=en-US}} attributes the introduction of the term "offshore balancing" to himself in his 1997 article.{{cite journal|last=Layne|first=Christopher|date=1997|title=From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy|url=https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/isec.22.1.86|journal=International Security|language=en|volume=22|issue=1|pages=86–124|doi=10.1162/isec.22.1.86|s2cid=57560143|issn=0162-2889|hdl=10945/43144|hdl-access=free}} Several experts on strategy, such as John Mearsheimer,{{cite web|last=Mearsheimer|first=John J.|date=2010-12-16|title=Imperial by Design|url=https://nationalinterest.org/article/imperial-by-design-4576|access-date=2020-10-18|website=The National Interest|language=en}} Stephen Walt,{{cite news|last1=Mearsheimer|first1=John J.|last2=Walt|first2=Stephen M.|date=2019-08-14|title=The Case for Offshore Balancing|journal=Foreign Affairs: America and the World|language=en-US|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-06-13/case-offshore-balancing|access-date=2020-10-18|issn=0015-7120}} Robert Pape,{{cite book|last=Pape|first=Robert Anthony|title=Cutting the fuse : the explosion of global suicide terrorism and how to stop it|date=2012|publisher=University of Chicago Press|others=Feldman, James K. (James Kendrick), Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism.|isbn=978-0-226-64565-0|edition=Pbk.|location=Chicago|oclc=793208206}} Andrew Latham,{{cite web|last=Latham|first=Andrew|title=The U.S. Grand Strategy of Liberal Internationalism Is Dead|date=October 2021|url=https://www.19fortyfive.com/2021/07/the-u-s-grand-strategy-of-liberal-internationalism-is-dead//|language=en-US}} Patrick Porter,{{cite web|title=Losing Struggle|url=https://offshorebalancer.wordpress.com/|access-date=2020-10-18|website=Losing Struggle|language=en}} and Andrew Bacevich, have embraced the approach. They argue that offshore balancing has its historical roots in British grand strategy regarding Europe, which was eventually adopted and pursued by the United States and Japan at various points in their history.{{cite book|last=Kennan|first=George|title=American Diplomacy Sixtieth-Anniversary Expanded Edition|date=2012|publisher=The University of Chicago Press|location=Chicago and London|pages=xi-xvi}}

According to political scientist John Mearsheimer, in his University of Chicago "American Grand Strategy" class, offshore balancing was the strategy used by the United States in the 1930s and also in the 1980–1988 Iran–Iraq War. Mearsheimer argues that when the United States gave Lend-Lease aid to Britain in the 1940s, the United States engaged in offshore balancing by being the arsenal of democracy, not the fighter for it.

That is consistent with offshore balancing because the United States initially did not want to commit American lives to the European conflict. The United States supported the losing side (Iraq) in the Iran–Iraq War to prevent the development of a regional hegemon, which could ultimately threaten American influence. Furthermore, offshore balancing can seem like isolationism when a rough balance of power in international relations exists, which was the case in the 1930s. It was also the strategy used during the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union.

The grand strategy of "offshore balancing" arguably permits a great power to maintain its power without the costs of large military deployments around the world. It can be seen as the informal-empire analogue to federalism in formal ones (for instance the proposal for the Imperial Federation in the late British Empire). Offshore balancing, as its name implies, is a grand strategy that can be pursued by the only non-Eurasian great power, the United States.

The strategy calls for this state to maintain a rough balance of power in the three key geopolitical regions of the world: Europe, the Persian Gulf, and Northeast Asia. The three regions are the focus, since Europe and Northeast Asia are the major industrial centers of the world, which contain all of the other great powers and the Persian Gulf for its importance to the global oil market. Outside of these regions, an offshore balancer should not worry about developments. Also, the state pursuing offshore balancing should first seek to pass the buck to local powers and intervene only if the threat is too great for the other powers in the region to handle.{{cite news|last1=Mearsheimer|first1=John J.|last2=Walt|first2=Stephen M.|date=2019-08-14|title=The Case for Offshore Balancing|journal=Foreign Affairs: America and the World|language=en-US|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-06-13/case-offshore-balancing|access-date=2020-10-18|issn=0015-7120}}

• Christopher Layne
• John Mearsheimer
• Stephen Walt
• Robert Pape
• Barry Posen
• Michael Lind
• Andrew Bacevich

• Israel–United States relations
• Thucydides Trap

{{Reflist}}

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• {{cite journal|url=https://calhoun.nps.edu/handle/10945/43144|title=From Preponderance to Offshore Balancing: America's Future Grand Strategy|last=Christopher Layne|date=1997|journal=International Security}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.newsweek.com/return-offshore-balancing-82925|title=A Return to Offshore Balancing|last=John J. Mearsheimer|date=December 2008|work=Newsweek}}
• {{cite web|url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2011/11/02/offshore-balancing-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/|title=Offshore Balancing: An idea whose time has come|last=Stephen Walt|date=November 2011|work=Foreign Policy}}
• {{cite web|url=https://thediplomat.com/2014/02/stephen-walt-is-not-obamas-george-kennan/|title=Stephen Walt is Not Obama's George Kennan|last=Zachary Keck|date=February 2014|work=The Diplomat}}
• {{cite web|url=https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1291|title=The Limits of Offshore Balancing|last=Hal Brands|date=September 2015|work=Strategic Studies Institute|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170428064913/https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pubs/display.cfm?pubID=1291|archive-date=2017-04-28}}
• {{cite web|url=http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/Offshore%20Balancing.pdf|title=The Case for Offshore Balancing|last=Mearsheimer, Walt|date=June 2016|work=Foreign Affairs}}

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• Walt, Stephen (2018). The Hell of Good Intentions: America's Foreign Policy Elite and the Decline of U.S. Primacy {{ISBN|978-0374280031}}
• Walt, Stephen (2005). Taming American Power: The Global Response to U.S. Primacy {{ISBN|978-0393052039}}
• Mearsheimer, John (2014). The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, Chapter 6, The Offshore Balancers {{ISBN|978-0-393-34927-6}}
• Layne, Christopher (2007). The Peace of Illusions: American Grand Strategy from 1940 to the Present {{ISBN|978-0-393-34927-6}}

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• Layne, Christopher (2002). Offshore Balancing Revisited (The Washington Quarterly, Spring 2002)

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Category:International relations theory