Balance of Power

Lowry refers to the "balance of power in his novel Ultramarine when Dana and Popplereuter are talking during their drunken drift around Dairen; " 'We fought because we had to,' Popplereuter went on, 'for the "balance of power", you call it.'" (Pg. 89).

The Balance of Power in Europe (often referred to as maintaining the balance of power) is an international relations concept that applies historically and currently to the nations of Europe. It is often known by the term European State System.

After the resignation of Otto Von Bismark in the 1890s, the foreign policy of the German Empire became expansionary and the newly created alliances were proven to be fragile, something that triggered the First World War in 1914. One of the objectives of the Treaty of Versailles, the main post-WWI treaty, was to abolish the dominance of the 'Balance of Power' concept and replace it with the (global) League of Nations. Read more on Wikipedia