Concepts of Balance of Power and related ideas
Basic IR Theory
Critical to our understanding of this prewar period is three somewhat related ideas - Balance of Power, Threat and Terror.
Balance of power is the main one I have been discussing so far and is the one that would govern the first 142 years of our timeline. I suspect that the 77 years after the Battle of Five Armies (or its stand in - more on that later) would follow a more Balance of Threat logic. Once the War of the Ring starts to heat up, Balance of Terror would take over.
Balance of Power is basically the idea that all governments are more secure when no single state is strong enough to dominate the others. Should one achieve this level of power, there would be no checks on their aggression and would likely begin to attack its weaker neighbors. When other nations feel the nation in question is becoming this sort of security risk, they will form defensive alliances against them. Think of Cold War containment to a degree. The idea is that there would naturally tend to be equal power in the coalitions that exist. No one would act aggressively because they would feel that their enemies would inflict unacceptable costs on them. Now, this only works if and when 1) such balance exists and 2) the system is perceived this way by all potential aggressors.
But it is recognized that the balance of power system cannot hold in all circumstances. One of them is in the rise of new potential superpowers and the other is the decline of old ones. We saw this in the road to war in 1914. The combination of German rise and the decline of Austrian and Ottoman imperial power went a long way to explain the outbreak of war. These are relatively common characteristics in world history. But just as a rise of a new potential superpower destabilizes a balance of power system, so too does the absence of an effective counterbalance. It wasn't just that Europe was destabilized by the rise of Germany, but no major power in Europe could counter it. True, Russia was seen as possibly such a counter, but everyone felt that it would not be effective in that role until 1918. Germany was able to outlast the Austrians, Ottomans and Russians. It was only outlasted by the combined might of France, England and Italy. These powers were only able to do this due to the assistance of the US - otherwise they too could have easily cracked first. Should a power from outside the system not be able to step in and provide that counter, the Balance of Power system will fall. This is why a true balance of power system is rare in history.
Middle Earth is a classic example of this. The relative power and boundaries were mostly stable and rigid through most of the 219 years we have to look at. In fact, the occupation of either Moria or the Lonely Mountain by the dwarves would not have taken territory from other states. These would have created new military forces and shifted the military balance of power - the shifts in power would thus be shifted in relative not absolute terms.
In the balance of power model, there are two major options when faced with external threats. These are internal and external balancing. The former is essentially a domestic arms build up while the latter is alliances. Arms races, new alliances, preemptive wars and so forth can be expected as established powers seek to retain their positions and counter new threats. By joining with a collection of weaker powers, a state can expect to have more influence and thus their own power would increase - especially after the threat is eliminated.
We see this balancing behavior at least three times in Lord of the Rings. The first is the Battle of Five Armies. Here, the dwarves, men of Dale and elves all form a temporary alliance to defeat the attacking wargs and orcs. Balancing also shows up when the elves and ents send reinforcements to Helm's Deep. Lastly, Rohan sends reinforcements to aid Gondor during the latter's battle against Mordor.
The reverse is to bandwagon. This option is essentially to side with the potential superpower. This is done for two reasons as well. The first is the hope that by allying with the rising power, the rising power will not attack it. Leaders will also choose to side with the rising power out of a desire for the spoils of war. In real life, this was the motive for the Ottomans siding with Germany in World War One. German aid could lead to the destruction of Russia. This would remove two of the Ottoman Empire's biggest security threats - Russian desires to take Constantinople and their support for ethnic minorities with separatist aims.
We see these behaviors in Middle Earth as well. Isengard's motives are summarized by "if you can't beat them, join them". The Southrons and Easterlings both bordered Mordor. They would have made quite easy targets for opening attacks by Mordor. Both of them plus the Corsairs were promised valuable spoils of war on top of this.
States will choose balancing if and when they feel that their security is protected by a defensive alliance against the rival. This means they must feel that their own power plus that of coalition partners must be perceived by the members as high enough to either deter or defeat the rising power. States without the hope of joining such a coalition will seek to bandwagon. If they cannot defeat the rival, perhaps they can be appeased into sparing the threatened state. At best, they will get something out of the new order. At worst they will delay the inevitable.
Other options occur less frequently, but do occur. Bloodletting and buck passing are the main ones. Buck passing is basically trying to get the aggressive power to focus elsewhere. They can do this by maintaining good relations with the aggressor so they will not want to attack. But at the same time would not have an alliance with them so that the fighting between them does not pull in the buck passer. Cool relations with other powers accomplishes the same thing. Cool relations between Italy and Austria for example resulted in Italy remaining neutral in the early days of World War One. The next option here are to build up one's own power so that the relatively weaker powers become more tempting targets. It must be noted though that this is risky, as if the other powers prove too weak to contain the aggressor, the buck passer just lost allies with whom an effective defensive coalition could have been formed with.
What happens when a state feels threatened by two potential rivals? Bloodletting or a "bait and bleed" tactic. Here, the nation in question can support both sides in a war of attrition between the two rivals in which the blood-letter remains officially neutral. The result is the two enemies destroy themselves while no damage is done to the practitioner. Variations of this include provoking such a fight or providing support to violent nonstate actors opposed to the enemy powers. This can be seen in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Truman is said to have supported this policy as well - stating that the US should have supported whoever was losing in the fight between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
As stated before, there are many threats to a balance of power based system. The first major group of threats are opportunities for aggression. In the real world, this can be seen in the decline of the Austrian and Ottoman Empires. Gondor was declining before the War of the Ring. So were the elves, who were slowly migrating away from Middle Earth. These were the two powers forming the bulwark of the defensive coalition against Mordor.
Then there is the rise of new potential superpowers. Mordor was growing in strength as was Sauron personally. Isengard was growing both militarily and economically. The Lonely Mountain in the official timeline and possibly Moria would be new and powerful states as well.
Lastly, there was the growing number of crisis points. Rohan was dealing with a growth in Wild Men and orc attacks. Gondor and Rohan were faced with sustained and successful subversion of their political leadership. Meanwhile, immediate neighbors with clear hostile intentions were included in the powers growing in military strength.
In this context, the alliance system will become much more insecure. The Balance of Threat idea would come to the fore, which is a much more explicitly realist concept. In this idea, alliances will not be formed to rationally balance the forces in the international system so that no one can dominate. Instead, the basis of alliances will be the explicit containment of specific threats. Such as the allied powers in World War Two - whose only unifying element was its list of enemies.
Threats, as noted elsewhere, are defined by their strength in terms of economic power, size, population and related factors. Military assets combined with offensive intentions and geographic proximity make nations real threats. Simply increasing military power in its own right can be seen as inherently hostile. This then provokes arms races, external balancing and preemptive wars. After all, weakness in one nation can provoke the military power into attacking due to it being a tempting target. But, the purely defensive countermeasures produce fears in outside powers that said defensive military power is meant as an offensive tool. Both sides then seek to attack the other to make sure they are not the ones defeated in the allegedly inevitable war. After all, the only way to truly eliminate that threat is to defeat it totally. This logic makes a Balance of Threat system much less stable but much more common.
It is also characterized by fear and disproportional emphasis on potential rather than current strength. Nations will attack a weak state if they feel it will or is seeking to become a superpower in a Balance of Threat System. The possibility of offensive actions is all that is needed to make a state a threat. One does not need to be really able to act on that at the moment.
We see this idea at the heart of Gandalf's actions. The threat of Smaug was more in his potential rather than actual behavior. As much as his actions induced misery on the dwarves, it paled in comparison to what he could do in the service of Mordor. While there was no major activities by Smaug prior to the arrival of Thorin and Company, he was enough of a threat to warrant a response. The rise of Mordor was another example of this idea in Middle Earth. Mordor had yet to openly attack Middle Earth or even finish gathering its forces. Yet it was gaining significant power and its offensive intentions were well known in advance. Hence why Gandalf advocated for the Fellowship option.
Then, like the First World War, there was an inciting incident. WW1 had the assassination of the Austrian Archduke. The War of the Ring had the discovery of the One Ring. Those allied with the White Council could only ever gain security through the destruction of the One Ring. As this was basically an assassination plot against Mordor's head of state, this was naturally seen as an act of war by Mordor. It, like Austria attacking Serbia, felt that offensive actions to preempt that threat was key to its own survival.
Now, the Balance of Terror became the defining international paradigm in the transition from cold war to hot war. The basic idea here is that nuclear weapons scared both sides of the Cold War from direct confrontation. Once both the US and USSR had them both recognized the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction. Neither side could use them without retaliation and thus their own virtual destruction. The result was confrontation via their respective intelligence agencies.
Proxy fights became the norm. Both sides would support allied governments while the other would finance the rebel groups trying to overthrow those very same governments. Sometimes, one side would send their own troops - think Vietnam or Afghanistan. But the other side would never send their own troops to those same nations. Nor would anyone but spies attempt to penetrate the other nation directly. There was no armed rebel or terrorist group financed by the US that I know of that operated in Russia itself for example.
But as we know, there is no assurances this system will not break down. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a good case in point. Nor is this to say this period was really all that peaceful - those who say it was tend to ignore the deaths of at least 100 million people. But it could have been so much worse. And that is the point. The fear of catastrophic consequences was seen as an effective deterrence to aggression. But by its very nature, the Balance of Terror idea rests on the other side being the ultimate threat. Should a means to eliminate this threat present itself, no rational leader would not take that opportunity. That leader would aim to strike hard enough to prove fatal and fast enough to prevent retaliation.
Similarly, Gandalf acts as I would expect for a leader operating in a Balance of Terror context. Gandalf knew that direct attack would have been fatal. After all, Mordor's military is quite powerful and it has allies formidable in their own right. Hence the attacks on Umbar and the Blue Wizards infiltrating the Easterlings. Even the Fellowship can be seen in Balance of Terror terms. Because military attack would be suicidal, alternative means of defeating this enemy are needed. If we remember, direct strikes against the enemy need to be as fast and strong as possible. Also, we need to remember than secrecy can confer the same benefits as speed. Thus, the Fellowship sneaking into Mordor can destroy the One Ring before Sauron can respond. Meanwhile, success would mean total and instant defeat of the enemy. It would cut off any hope of recovery or retaliation. Nuclear powers have to contend with enemy second strike capabilities in most cases. Sauron would not have this.
Mordor too feared attacking his enemies. Without the Ring, there was no assurances of success. In fact, Sauron was defeated while in possession of the One Ring. He still had to contend with the fortifications of Minas Tirith, which is no easy nut to crack. The Dwarves had an even more powerful base in the Lonely Mountain. Then there was the Rohirrim - the most powerful mounted force. We also cannot underestimate the power of the eagles and the ents here.
Even the nuclear weapons connection is present. Mordor has the One Ring, the Ring Wraiths, Grond and trolls. All of these "weapons" makes Mordor straight up terrifying even without raw numbers. While Sauron with the One Ring can still be defeated, he cannot be killed without it being destroyed. This means that he will continue to be a threat forever as long as it exists - meaning it confers a huge benefit to Mordor through its mere existence.
Aragorn has the Army of the Dead. The Fellowship has the One Ring. So while it cannot use the "weapon", it has the one and only tool that can totally defeat Sauron. Thus, he would not attack unless absolutely needed to make sure he does not provoke that option. We see this actually in the story. He first tries to look for the Ring and only attacks when he feels desperate. Also, he uses proxies and shadow wars to fight before his open assaults. We see this with Dol Goldur and Isengard.
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