Systems of Universal Peace

Abstract

Those who advocated balance of power policies as the means of regulating relations among states assumed that the same objective could not be brought about by more radical means: for example by changing state behaviour and inducing governments voluntarily to adopt more co-operative policies. Conflict, they believed, was a natural feature of international existence, and conflict itself was necessary to tame the appetite of any state seeking to acquire excessive power: it was therefore only by mobilising combinations and alliances against the most serious threats to international order that order could be maintained. But there were others who hoped that a better system of international relations could be established by different means: by appealing to rulers and governments to adopt more peaceful policies or by establishing new arrangements having the effect that their disputes would henceforth be resolved only by peaceful means.