Structuralist theories of international relations attempt to source state behavior in the polarity of the international system. This research paper seeks a structuralist answer to why Germany did not seek continental hegemony in 1905 when it enjoyed a decisive advantage in power and instead waited to go to war in 1914 when it faced a relatively unfavorable balance of power. Offensive realist theories struggle with this case because, according to this school of thought, security and continental hegemony are interchangeable and thus there is no reason offensive realists can point to as to why a Franco-German war should not have broken out in 1905 (Mearsheimer 2014, 259). Previous scholarship on the subject has shown that some if not all of the Kaiser’s key military and foreign policy advisors desired a preventive war in 1905 but were thwarted by Wilhelm’s intransigence (Lambi [1984] 2019, 251-252). This paper uses archival sources to reconstruct the views of key foreign policy decision-makers in order to attempt to understand why war was not launched. Ultimately, it concludes that elites in Germany did not seek hegemony and that the Kaiser vetoed plans for preventive war because of concerns about British naval retaliation, out of concerns that attacking France would lead to a balancing coalition between the UK, Italy, and the Ottoman Empire, and because a Franco-German war might trigger a socialist insurrection on the homefront (Balfour 2013, 300; Lambi [1984] 2019, 248 & 249; Retallack 2008, 52). These reasons are then interpreted using a set of frameworks from defensive realists and neoclassical realist theories, and the implications for current events such as Chinese-American relations are discussed.