as seen with the completion of the Suez Canal and its attempts to build the Panama Canal in the Western Hemisphere.31 Paul Kennedy explains that France carried out a dynamic colonial policy because it permitted a small group of bureaucrats, colonial governors, and party colonial enthusiasts to effect strategies that maximized colonial expansion and management of its territories. These policies allowed France to become immensely rich in terms of access to markets and resources overseas. This in turn enabled France to have mobile capital to spend as it saw fit in a variety of domestic and foreign policies in order to position their country as one of the great powers of the world.32
Meanwhile, Germany, Italy, and Japan were late arrivals in the new wave of imperialism during the nineteenth century. This later adoption of imperialism was based on the need to establish political, economic, and military security within their respective homelands. All three major powers had to forcibly unite their countries through military means, as seen with the wars of unification of Germany and Italy in Europe and the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Once united, these countries also had to undergo a period of political consolidation and economic modernization at home in order to form modern, well-organized nations. By the late nineteenth century, all three major powers survived their periods of transition and began exerting both hard and soft power beyond their borders based on a desire to secure markets, natural resources, and land for their growing populations. Both Charles W. Kegley Jr. and Gregory A. Raymond point out in their examination of fateful decisions regarding war and peace in international politics that industrialization enabled the total mobilization of not only a major power’s population and resources, but also harnessed science and technology as well. Through this transformation, these newly industrialized and technologically advanced states began to change the geostrategic balance of power in the world by competing for international position and status.33
The drive for the Germans, Italians, and Japanese to expand was based primarily on the international environment of their time during the nineteenth century where the imperial preferential trading system established by the other European colonial powers catered only to their own respective national well-being. Meanwhile, the high tariff barrier established by the United States, as well as its political and economic influence over most of the Western Hemisphere, made any possibility of establishing political and commercial ties out of the question. Facing the perceived choice of needing to grow or perish, Germany, Italy, and Japan quickly began undergoing military expeditions to establish and expand their colonial empires. Motivated by the urgent need to bring greater security to its geopolitical positions, Germany, Italy, and Japan took aggressive action against weaker independent countries, resulting in German dominance over parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, Italian control over parts of East Africa, and Japan’s growing influence over China and Korea.34 Henry Kissinger observes, “The Concert of Europe, which had maintained peace for over a century, had for all practical purposes ceased to exist. The Great Powers had thrown themselves with blind frivolity into a bipolar struggle that led to petrification into two power blocs.”35
By the end of the nineteenth century, imperialism quickly gained momentum, and as a result, most of the world was carved into a complex system of various European political and economic empires. Max Boot points out, “Europeans enjoyed other technological advantages beyond weaponry that facilitated their nineteenth-century conquests. Steamships, railroads, telegraphs, medical science—all were important contributors to the success of colonial campaigns by putting Europeans in a position where they could use their improved [weaponry].”36 Therefore, the intense competition among the world’s major powers for land and resources now meant that fewer territories were open for colonization and economic exploitation. This change in the international system resulted in the world’s major powers becoming increasingly aggressive toward each other and more sensitive to various international incidents and perceived slights that, in some cases, threatened to explode into major regional wars. While the international community attempted to create global institutions and agreements to control and work out potential conflicts, as seen with diplomatic agreements in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, these nascent institutions and agreements did not have much credible influence.37
Meanwhile, international friction and crises continued on and off, as seen in Africa, where a scramble for control over the heart of the continent led to a race between the British, the French, the Belgian, and the Italian expeditionary forces. The race quickly turned into a standoff between Great Britain and France over which nation would control the Upper Nile when both expeditionary forces faced each other in Fashoda, Sudan. War was barely avoided when France worked out an agreement with Great Britain, resulting in the British controlling the Nile while France received most of the Sahara region and, later, Morocco. Afterward, another incident occurred during the Samoan Crisis in which American, British, and German warships confronted each other over which nation would control the Pacific island group. John M. Pafford points out that while Great Britain and the United States were old rivals, Germany was different because it had grown powerful through political, economic, and military unification in 1871. Powered by the massive investments from industry and technology, Germany was new to empire building and quickly staked strategic claims in Africa and the Pacific. In addition, Germany was not only able to build the largest military in Europe, but was also simultaneously challenging Great Britain for the largest navy and the economy as well.38 Germany was ready to challenge both Great Britain and the United States over the Samoan Islands. Fortunately, a major war was barely avoided when the timely arrival of a cyclone destroyed all three naval squadrons and forced a settlement between the three major powers.
In the nineteenth century, the balance of power established by Great Britain from the Napoleonic Wars was enforced and maintained by the world’s major powers despite significant changes to the power dynamics of the international system. For example, the Ottoman Empire was in decline and was only saved from being destroyed by the Russian Empire during the Crimean War thanks to the timely intervention of Great Britain, France, and Sardinia-Piedmont.39 Meanwhile, China’s Qing Dynasty was fighting for its survival against the encroachments of the various foreign powers and was even successful in stopping the Taiping Rebellion from overthrowing the dynasty and potentially creating a failed state thanks to the timely intervention of Great Britain and France.40 Finally, Germany, Italy, and Japan made dramatic appearances on the international scene when military force was used to unite their respective countries and, soon afterward, these nations implemented policies that transformed them into highly developed and powerful nations. Henry Kissinger points out that the most important reason that Europe was able to prevent itself from fracturing into war was because of shared diplomatic values established since the Congress of Vienna. The concept of maintaining the balance of power in Europe was more than just a physical equilibrium, but a moral one as well. The system of checks and balances created to prevent any major power from becoming too powerful in Europe reduced the opportunities of using force as well as contributed to maintaining international order. However, it was becoming apparent that the state system established nearly a hundred years following the Napoleonic Wars was going to be challenged sooner or later.41
The End of the European Balance of Power
Under these conditions, imperial competition during the late nineteenth century began to radically change the geopolitical situation as a result of many political, economic, and military forces, which was exacerbated by the Second Industrial Revolution. This revolution not only introduced scientific and technological changes, but also brought about new political, social, and economic ideas that threatened to overthrow timeless institutional beliefs of religion, society, and government. According to Hew Strachan, the motor of innovation was no longer commercial, but military. Iron, coal, and steam power introduced new technologies across Europe. In turn, this new technology brought intense industrial development and introduced new goods and services. In short, industrialization transformed the conduct of war because machines mass-produced weapons quicker and better. These changes ultimately facilitated the total mobilization of a country’s population and resources as it sought to establish the foundations of a modern society.42 During the nineteenth century, the rise in nationalism, as well as a wave of social and political unrest, that swept Europe and the rest of the world
