Walt identifies four criteria states use to evaluate the threat posed by another state: its aggregate strength or power (size, population, latent power, and economic capabilities), its geographic proximity, its offensive capabilities, and its offensive or hostile intentions.
The flaw of the balance of power theory became even more striking after the disappearance of the Soviet threat.
With its power unbalanced, Walt argued in 2004 that the United States is still formally allied with NATO, Japan, South Korea, and several other countries, and he hints that the US might withdraw its forces, which still tend to provoke requests for a continued US presence.
[2] Counterbalancing coalitions predicted by the balance of power theory hardly appeared:[needs update] Responses to U.S. primacy pale in comparison to self-defeating self-encirclement that Wilhelmine Germany or the Soviet Union provoked, cases where most of the other major powers made formal or informal alliances to contain or defeat these powerful expansionist states … To date, at least, there is little sign of a serious effort to forge a meaningful anti-American alliance....
Power in the international system is about as unbalanced as it has ever been, yet balancing tendencies are remarkably mild.