The outcome of international competition in early modern Europe was the exact opposite of that in ancient China: “No state has come to dominate the international system; few wars are total; losers rarely are divided up at the end of the war and indeed are reintegrated into the international system; small states, which do not have the resources to protect themselves, usually survive.” In light of the ancient Chinese trajectory, how did the logic of balancing and the logic of domination play out to bring about relative checks and balances in the early modern European system? Chapter Two illustrates that the countervailing mechanisms of balance of power and rising costs of administration were overcome by the coercive mechanisms of self-strengthening reforms, divide-and-conquer strategies, and ruthless stratagems in the ancient Chinese system. Did the checking mechanisms somehow present hard constraints in the European context?

Domination-seekers in early modern Europe failed because they did not follow the logic of domination fully. If the balance of power and the rising costs of expansion seemed insurmountable, it was because European states did not develop the strength of the lion and the wit of the fox, as urged by Machiavelli. While European rulers widely practiced counterbalancing strategies, they only belatedly pursued self-strengthening reforms and rarely employed ancient-Chinese-style ruthless stratagems against one another. As highlighted in Chapter Two, Sunzian stratagems were critical to Qin's ability to divide and conquer, minimize war costs, overcome relative weakness early on, and prevent other states from catching up after it achieved hegemony.