s based on the premise that this question can be answered in the affirmative. The study of history does not in and of itself require this assumption. The historian can study the outbreak of the First or Second World Wars, or the consequences of Columbus' voyages to the New World, as unique events involving particular people and groups at a particular time and place in the history of the world. Indeed, the historian tends to focus on the unique features of events, and is often skeptical of analogies between situations where the actual circumstances may have been very different. The student of international relations, however, studies history with an eye to identifying particular patterns that may have recurred in the past, and may appear again in the future.
Thus, for example, the Balance of Power was, historically, a state of affairs that prevailed in a particular place and time, Europe of the eighteenth century, and between particular entities, the dynastic monarchies of Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and so forth. The historian notes unique features of these states and their relations--the static condition of technology, the limited capabilities of their armies to force decisive results, the lack of strong nationalistic ideologies or impulses, or any of a host of other factors--which have not necessarily been reduplicated elsewhere.
The theorist of international affairs, however, notes that similar balance-of-power relationships seem to have prevailed at other times and places as well. Indeed, the balance-of-power, or multipolar system of power relations, is just one member of a spectrum of such relationships students of international affairs have identified, other types being unipolar, such as the Roman Empire, or polypolar, as prevailed in medieval Europe (Spanier, 1990, pp. 118-22).
A balance of power can be identified in nineteenth-century Europe, at a time when technology was experiencing dramatic progre...