Containment Nineteenth Century Style: How Russia was Restrained

Abstract

Historians, as well as detectives, must take into account not only the occurrence of the expected, but also the nonoccurrence of the expected. This essay argues that a nonevent, the failure of an unexpected development to take place, became very important in the nineteenth century European states system and, further, that this nonevent may be interesting and instructive for present and future international politics as well.

Inspector Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Sherlock Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

Holmes: “That was the curious incident.” Arthur Conan Doyle, “Silver Blaze,” in The Annotated Sherlock Holmes, ed. W. S. Baring-Gould (New York, 1967), 2, 277