‘Ideal’ and ‘punch‐bag’: Conflicting views of the balance of power and their influence on interwar British foreign policy

Abstract

It is possible to identify two general descriptive applications of the term ‘balance of power” that affected British policymaking in the years following the First World War. These two applications reflected simplistic historical interpretations of the European States System in the period before 1914 and Britain's role in it. One application of the term was pejorative and associated with the discredited system of pre‐1914 Great Power diplomacy. The second application stemmed from a more a positive assessment of Britain's prewar diplomacy, seeing it as the traditional goal of preventing the domination of the European continent by a single power. The purpose of this article is to examine both uses of the expression balance of power and demonstrate how tliey influenced the direction of British diplomacy in the interwar period.