Underbalancing, the Rise of the United States and Germany, and British Hegemony

• In Event: Provocation, Escalation, and Duration

Abstract

Why did the United States fail to balance against British naval power in the 19th century even after the nation suffered devastating losses in both its wars against Great Britain at the hands of the Royal Navy? Why, too, did Germany Chancellor Otto von Bismarck reject calls from German imperialists to build a navy that could challenge British hegemony around the world, leaving the Germany’s global trade at the mercy of British power? The answer: both nations recognized the strategic advantages of “underbalancing.”
Randall Schweller argues that underbalancing occurs “when the state does not balance or does so inefficiently in response to a dangerous and unappeasable aggressor, and the state’s efforts are essential to deter or defeat it.” Schweller argues that underbalancing helps explain why nation’s often fail to balance against predatory powers. Throughout the 19th century Great Britain was that dangerous and unappeasable aggressor. From the moment the United States gained its independence, Great Britain would launch significant efforts to undermine the new American nation, actions that would continue throughout the 19th century as it tried to thwart America’s continental expansion. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy blockaded the American coastline and devastated American commerce, resulting in the War of 1812. Following the war, American leaders contended that the United States needed a strong navy to protect its shores against the powerful British fleet based out of Halifax and Bermuda, only hundreds of miles from America’s coastal cities.
Balance of power logic dictates that the United States should have built such a fleet, yet, it would not until the early 1900s. Instead, U.S. leaders contended that doing so would lead to British preemption, the “Copenhagen Complex” after Britain’s merciless attack on the Danish capital in 1807 to capture the Danish Royal Navy. American leaders adopted a policy of underbalancing as a way to reduce the threat posed by America’s rise to power. For the next century the United States fielded a navy that could never threaten British power, laying the foundation for America’s peaceful rise to power.
Underbalancing also a played a key role in defining 19th century Anglo-German relations. Under Bismarck, Prussia would defeat Denmark, Austria, and France in successive wars, establishing itself at the dominant power on the European continent. However, Bismarck never attempted to challenge British global hegemony, particularly the power of the Royal Navy. While he understood that a rising Germany needed a state-of-the-art navy, he also realized that any effort to build a fleet comparable to the Royal Navy would plunge the nation into conflict with Great Britain. Instead, his goal was to build a fleet superior to all second-tier naval powers: France, Russia, and the United States. Germany continued its rise to power without becoming an enemy of the British state. However, Kaiser Wilhelm II rejected underbalancing, fired Bismarck and replaced his “continental strategy” with Welt Politik, a strategy to make Germany Britain’s equal, and plunged his nation into a naval arms race with Britain that led to World War I.
My paper will explore these three cases, arguing that German and American underbalancing helps us understand the strategic stability of the 19th century though Britain faced two rising global powers (Germany and the U.S.) as well as two long-existing world powers (France and Russia). Germany’s decision to abandon underbalancing sparked a chain reaction that led to World War I.
Gregory Mitrovich is Research Scholar at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of Undermining the Kremlin: America's Strategy to Subvert the Soviet Bloc, 1947-1956 published by Cornell University Press. The book was awarded the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize for outstanding book presented by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. He is also the author of the forthcoming book: The Triumvirate: Great Britain, the United States, Germany and the Making of the American Century. His research interests focus on the rise of the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries and the sustainability of the American model in the 21st century. His awards include research grants from the, Minerva Research Initiative, Smith Richardson Foundation, Harry S. Truman Scholar's Fellowship, Earhart Foundation Research Grant, and twice recipient of the Kennan Institute's Research Grant. He received a Ph.D. in international relations from the School of International Relations at USC.

Author

• Gregory Mitrovich