Which Strategy Rules: Balance of Power or Divide and Conquer?

If you ask a Western IR scholar what the most important concept in international relations is, the answer you may very well get is ‘the balance of power.’ This concept presupposes that weak states will seek to ally or join together to check the rise of a dominate hegemon. It is central to the international relations field. As a result, Eurocentric IR takes it on faith that such a balancing mechanism better explains interstate relations than its alternative: the divide and conquer strategy. Which one is actually more determinative?

The life sciences may shed some light on this question. While it is well-known that many social animals exist within dominance hierarchies, wherein a leader or set of leaders uses force and coercion to maintain control, what is less well-known is that a hierarchy of a very different type took shape in human societies. Writing in 1999, Christopher Boehm argued that hunter gatherer era humans exhibited a peculiar type of social organization: one characterized by inverse hierarchy, wherein the weak allied together to stymy the dominance ambitions of brutes.

This process was made possible by the fairly unique evolutionary trajectory that humans undertook, and in turn may have facilitated the rise of human’s most uniquely pervasive attribute: culture(i.e. social learning). When humans, due to tectonic and climactic shifts, were forced down from the East African treescape, they evolved unique physical and cognitive machinery that allowed them to cooperate in devastatingly effective ways. In particular, the evolution of moral instincts that incentivized cooperation and the evolution of bodies physically adapted in favor of running, throwing projectiles, and tool usage. One of the most important tools was long distance weaponry— rocks and spears. In addition to allowing humans to hunt extremely large game, Boehm and others have argued that such weapons made it extremely viable for weaker individuals to profitably unite in opposition to would-be tyrants. This cooperation, in turn, created major disincentives in human populations for pursuing outright dominance strategies.

With formal hierarchy under dominance increasingly off the table, informal hierarchies predicated upon prestige-based strategies of respect and willing deference rose in prominence. The changing incentives in how leadership was attained laid the groundwork for cultural evolution to kick into overdrive. Once individuals were largely blocked from using dominance to attain influence (and mates), would-be leaders relied upon demonstrating and utilizing valued skills and competencies to attain influence, which meant that individuals who contributed useful innovations, i.e. cultural innovations, gained in prominence and influence. An autocatalytic process set in wherein prestige-based strategies brought about more cultural evolution and greater success for one’s group. Balance of power, which underwrote this process, may very well have played a pivotal role in the evolution of humanity.

Yet, despite our human conceits, we are not that far removed from our chimpanzee and social primate cousins. Indeed, although our evolutionary trajectory during the hunter gatherer epoch was uniquely paved by balance of power strategies within groups, our cognitive architecture is deeply embedded in dominance-based strategies. Moreover, while our cognitive evolution may have made us more amenable than any other species (excluding social insects that share extremely large portions of their DNA) to cooperation and balancing against tyrants, it also enabled us to become more effective Machiavellians. Indeed, during times of economic uncertainty and intergroup conflict it has been shown that humans not only allow, but actively desire more dominance-oriented leaders. Furthermore, evidence from extant hunter gatherer groups demonstrates that human populations vary greatly in the degree to which their leaders use dominance and force vs. prestige and competence. To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn, life science research indicates that the dividing line between balancing and dominating runs through the very heart of man.

Similarly, as Victoria Hui demonstrates in her book comparing ancient China and Early Modern Europe, whether balance of power or divide and conquer carries the day in international politics is ultimately contingent. Geographic conditions, cultural dispositions, and skill and tenacity of leaders all play a role in determining whether or not states will overcome the costs of collective action to enforce balancing, or whether they will succumb to the divide and conquer stratagems of a hegemon. Life sciences provide indirect insight into this international relations conundrum in demonstrating that humans have uniquely evolved a capacity for balancing power. But they also demonstrate our long pre-history rooted in the success of dominance, and even, at times, our continuing desire for it. Thus, at multiple levels of analysis, the answer to whether ‘balance of power’ or ‘divide and conquer’ reigns supreme appears indeterminant and intrinsically contingent. Theories, including many in contemporary international relations, that presume a dispositive answer in this fundamental debate are problematic.

One may hope for a third way; an alternative to the dichotomous framing posed in this essay between unfettered dominance and unstable balance of power. Indeed, perhaps leadership by prestige is such third way. Rather than pursuing strict dominance in formalized hierarchies, states might willingly defer to more skilled or competent states in informal hierarchies. In return, the prestigious states would be granted influence to mold world order in accordance with their preferences (Pax Americana?). In transcending the debate between balancing and divide and conquer, such a third way could offer a more stable and peaceful solution for the world. Such a world, however, necessitates willing deference drawn from actors that respect the competence and skills of leaders. There are reasons to suspect that such a world, if it ever existed, is unlikely to flourish today. As Martin Gurri argues in his book the Revolt of the Public, the ability to exert legitimate leadership of any sort in our contemporary, hyper-connected world is increasingly doubtful, as people are driven to unify against any type of legitimate authority. If Gurri’s argument holds water, then we may be stuck waiting and watching for whether, in our era, the logic of ‘balance of power’ or ‘divide and conquer’ will prove ascendant. In other words, whether the square or the tower will reign.