Soft Balancing as Foreign Policy: Assessing American Strategy toward Japan in the Interwar Period

Abstract

In an attempt to increase the legitimacy and traction of soft balancing in contemporary International Relations (IR) scholarship, and in order to rebuff critiques of its applicability, the concept is further clarified and applied to examine American foreign policy vis-à-vis Japan in the interwar period. Analysis reveals that soft balancing is not only a legitimate explanation, but also explains a major historical and theoretical puzzle—American grand strategy vis-à-vis Japan in interwar period—it shows that the concept is also applicable to account for patterns in non-unipolar systems.

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