[smacktoward]

> of the great powers, only France and Russia has a desire to upset the status quo

That wasn't really the case, though; during this period Germany was very busy upsetting the status quo by expanding their navy, which directly challenged the UK's position as the world's pre-eminent naval power.

[hga]

I count these differently. It comes down to intent vs. capability: was Germany intending anything more than becoming a greater power (I'm still reading up on this)? As a serious nation the UK of course had to react to the increased capability, but I view this as qualitatively different than France's crystal clear intent of taking back Alsace and Lorraine, which also was backed up by some serious capability.

Russia intended to help the Balkan nations stay out of the non-Slavic (in terms of rule) Austrian-Hungarian empire, however their capability to directly affect this was limited by geography (again, something I'm in the process of reading up on).

(There's also the forward looking detail: France was a declining nation (e.g. declining birthrate), Germany a growing nation. That put a time limit on their capability to carry out their intent.)