On Multipolar Systems and Bipolar Systems
Raymond Aron, Daniel J. Mahoney, Brian C. Anderson · 2017
This chapter focuses on multipolar systems and bipolar systems. The model of multipolar equilibrium helps people to understand the systems that have occurred in history, and the rules which they have borrowed from the American author suggest the circumstances favorable to the duration of such a system. The distinction between the multipolar and the bipolar configuration is evident to the observer because of the consequences, some logical, others historical, which each of these configurations involves. The multipolar and bipolar configurations are as radically opposed as they are pure types. The diplomatic configurations, like the battle plans, are few in number, because the modes of distribution of forces within a system or the movements of armies involve only a few typical models. The theory of models, however, permits neither the strategist to know in advance the maneuver he should perform, nor the historian to foresee what a given system, whether multipolar or bipolar, will become.