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BALANCE OF POWER World War I is often blamed on the balance of power, one of the most frequently used concepts in international politics and one of the most confusing. The term is loosely used to describe and justify all sorts of things. The eighteenth-century British philosopher David Hum...

BALANCE OF POWER World War I is often blamed on the balance of power, one of the most frequently used concepts in international politics and one of the most confusing. The term is loosely used to describe and justify all sorts of things. The eighteenth-century British philosopher David Hume described the balance of power as a constant rule of prudent politics, but the nineteenth-century British liberal Richard Cobden. called it "a chimera-an undescribed, indescribable, incomprehensible nothing." Woodrow Wilson, the American president during World War I, thought the balance of power was an evil principle because it encouraged statesmen to treat nations like cheeses to be cut up for political convenience regardless of the concerns of their peoples.  Woodrow Wilson, the American president during World War I, thought the balance of power was an evil principle because it encouraged statesmen to treat nations like cheeses to be cut up for political convenience regardless of the concerns of their peoples. Wilson also disliked the balance of power because he believed it caused wars. Defenders of balance-of-power policies argue that they produce stability. However, peace and stability are not the same thing. Over the five centuries of the European state system, the great powers were involved in 119 wars. Peace was rare; during three-quarters of the time there was war involving at least one of the great powers. Ten of those wars were large general wars with many of the great powers involved what we call hegemonic, or world wars. Thus, if we ask whether the balance of power preserved peace very well over the five centuries of the modern state system, the answer is no. That is not surprising because states balance power not to preserve peace, but to preserve their independence. The balance of power helps preserve the anarchic system of separate states. Not every state is preserved. For example, at the end of the eighteenth century, Poland was, indeed, cut up like a cheese, with Poland's neighbors Austria, Prussia, and Russia-all helping themselves to a large slice. More recently, in 1939 Stalin and Hitler made a deal in which they carved up Poland POWER To understand the balance, we have to start with power. Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure. Power is the ability to achieve one's purposes or goals. More specifically, it is the ability to affect others to get the outcomes one wants. Robert Dahl, a Yale political scientist, defines power as the ability to get others to do what they otherwise would not do. Because the ability to influence others is usually associated with the possession of certain resources, political leaders commonly define power this way. These resources include population, territory, natural resources, eco- nomic size, military forces, and political stability, among others. The virtue of this definition is that it makes power appear more concrete, measurable, and predictable than the behavioral definition. Power in this sense means holding the high cards in the international poker game Some wars, however, have been started by the eventual losers, which suggests that political leaders sometimes take risks or make mistakes. Japan in 1941 and Iraq in 1990 are examples. Often the opponent's cards are not all showing in the game of international politics. As in poker, bluffing and deception can make a big difference  Power conversion is a basic problem that arises when we think of power in terms of resources. Some countries are better than others at converting their resources into effective influence over other countries' behavior, just as some skilled card players win despite being dealt weak hands. Power conversion is the capacity to convert potential power, as measured by resources, to realized power, as measured by the changed behavior of others. Another problem is determining which resources provide the best basis for power in any particular context. Power resources always depend on the context. Tanks are not much good in swamps; uranium was not a power resource in the nineteenth century. In earlier periods, power resources were easier to judge. For example, in the agrarian economies of eighteenth-century Europe, population was a critical power resource because it provided a base for taxes and recruitment of infantry. In population, France dominated western Europe  Another change of context that occurred during the nineteenth century was the growing importance of industry and rail systems that made rapid mobilization possible. In the 1860s, Bismarck's Germany pioneered the use of railways to trans- port armies in Europe for quick victories. Although Russia had always had greater population resources than the rest of Europe, they were difficult to mobilize. The growth of the rail system in western Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century was one of the reasons the Germans feared rising Russian power in 1914. The application of industrial technology to warfare has long had a powerful impact. Advanced science and technology have been particularly critical power resources since the beginning of the nuclear age in 1945. But the power derived from nuclear weapons has proven to be so awesome and destructive that its actual application is muscle- bound. Nuclear war is simply far too costly. Indeed, there are many situations where any use of force may be inappropriate or too costly.  Coercing other states to change is a direct or commanding method of exercising power. Such hard power can rest on inducements ("carrots") or threats ("sticks"). But there is also a soft or indirect way to exercise power. A country may achieve its preferred outcomes in world politics because other countries want to emulate it or have agreed to a system that produces such effects. In this sense, it is just as important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics as it is to force others to change in particular situations. This aspect of power-that is, getting others to want what you want is called attractive, or soft power behavior. Soft power can rest on such resources as the attraction of one's ideas or on the ability to set the political agenda in a way that shapes the preferences others express. Parents of teenagers know that if they have structured their children's beliefs and preferences, their power will be greater and will last longer than if they had relied only on active control. Similarly, political leaders and constructivist theorists have long understood the power that comes from setting the agenda and determining the framework of a debate.  Soft power is not automatically more effective or ethical than hard power. Twisting minds is not necessarily better than twisting arms. Moral judgments depend on the purposes for which power is used. The terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, for example, had soft power in the eyes of his followers who carried out the attacks in 2001 Power is the ability to affect others to get the outcomes you want regardless of whether its sources are tangible. Soft power is often more difficult for governments to wield, slower to show results, and not effective in many cases. In 1917, Great Britain had greater soft power than Germany in American opinion, and that affected the United States' entry on Britain's side in World War I. More recent examples would include Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms attracting European support in World War II; young people behind the Iron Curtain listening to American music and news on Radio Free Europe during the Cold War; and the recent ability of the European Union to attract other countries.  Hard and soft power are related, but they are not the same. Material success makes a culture and ideology attractive and decreases in economic and military success lead to self-doubt and crises of identity. But soft power does not rest solely on hard power. The soft power of the Vatican did not wane as the size of the Papal States diminished in the nineteenth century. Canada, Sweden, and the Netherlands today tend to have more influence than some other states with equivalent economic or military capability. What resources are the most important sources of power today? A look at the five centuries of modern state systems shows that different power resources played critical roles in different periods. The sources of power are never static, and they continue to change in today's world. Moreover, they vary in different parts of the world. Soft power is becoming more important in relations among the postindustrial societies in an information age in which the democratic peace prevails; hard power is often more important in industrializing and preindustrial parts of the world.  In an age of information-based economies and transnational interdependence, power is becoming less transferable, less tangible, and less coercive, as we shall see in more detail in Chapters 7 and 8. Traditional analysts would predict the outcome of conflict mainly on the basis of whose army wins. Today, in conflicts like the struggle against transnational terrorism, it is equally important whose story wins. Hard power is necessary against hardcore terrorists, but it is equally important to use soft power to win the hearts and minds of the moderate population that might otherwise be won over by the terrorists. The transformation of power is not the same in all parts of the world. The twenty- first century will certainly see a greater role for informational and institutional power, but as the Gulf War demonstrated, hard military power remains an important instrument. Economic scale, both in markets and in natural resources, will also remain important. The service sector grows within modern economies, and the distinction between services and manufacturing continues to blur. Information will become more plentiful, and the critical resource will be organizational capacity for rapid and flexible response. Political cohesion will remain important, as well as the nurturing of a universalistic, exportable popular culture.  The difficulty of measuring changing power resources is a major problem for leaders trying to assess the balance of power. For analysts of international politics, additional confusion ensues when the same word is used for different things. We must try to separate and clarify the underlying concepts covered by the loose use of the same words. The term balance of power commonly refers to at least three different things. Balances as Distributions of Power Balance of power can mean, in the first sense, any distribution of power. Who has the power resources? Sometimes people use the term balance of power to refer to the status quo, the existing distribution of power. Thus in the 1980s, some Americans argued that if Nicaragua became a communist state, the balance of power would be changed. Such a use of the term is not very enlightening. If one little state changed sides, that might slightly alter the existing distribution of power, but it was a rather trivial change and did not tell us much about deeper changes occurring in world politics.  The term can also refer to a special (and rarer) set of situations in which power is distributed equally. This usage conjures up the image of a set of scales in balance or equilibrium. Some realists argue that stability occurs when there is an equal balance, but others argue that stability occurs when one side has a preponderance of power so the others dare not attack it. Hegemonic stability theory holds that imbalanced power produces peace. A strong dominant power ensures stability, but when that strong power begins to slip and a new challenger rises, war is more likely. Consider Thucydides's explanation of the Peloponnesian War: the rise of the power of Athens and the fear it created in Sparta fits this hegemonic transition theory. As we will see later in this chapter, so does World War I. However, we must be cautious about such theories, for they tend to overpredict conflict. In the 1880s, the United States passed Great Britain as the largest economy in the world. In 1895, the United States and Britain disagreed over borders in South America, and it looked as if war might result. There was a rising challenger, an old hegemon, and a cause of conflict, but you do not read about the great British- American War of 1895 because it did not occur. As Sherlock Holmes pointed out, we can get important clues from dogs that do not bark. In this case, the absence of war leads us to look for other causes. Realists point to the rise of Germany as a more proximate threat to Britain. Liberals point to the increasingly democratic nature of the two English- speaking countries and to transnational cultural ties between the old leader and the new challenger. The best we can conclude about the balance of power in the first sense of the term is that changes in the unequal distribution of power among leading states may be a factor, but not the sole factor, in explaining war Balance of Power as Policy The second use of the term refers to balance of power as a policy of balancing. Balance of power predicts that states will act to prevent any one state from developing a pre- ponderance of power. This prediction has a long pedigree. Lord Palmerston, British foreign secretary in 1848, said that Britain had no eternal allies or perpetual enemies; Britain thought only of its interests. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign minister in 1914, did not want to go to war, but eventually did because he feared Germany would gain preponderance in Europe by controlling the Continent. And in 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Prime Minister Winston Churchill said Britain should make an alliance with Stalin, against whom he had been fulminating just a few years before. Churchill said, "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons."2 These are good examples of balance of power as Predicting such behavior rests on two basic assumptions: (1) The structure of international politics is an anarchic system of states, and (2) states value their independence above all else. A balance- of-power policy does not necessarily assume that states act to maximize power. In fact, a state might choose a very different course of action if it wished to maximize power. It might choose to bandwagon, that is, join whoever seems stronger and share in the victor's gains. Bandwagoning is common in domestic politics in which politicians flock to an apparent winner. Balance of power, however, predicts that a state will join whoever seems weaker because states will act to keep any one state from developing a preponderance of power. Bandwagoning in international politics carries the risk of losing independence. In 1939 and 1940, the Italian dictator Mussolini joined Hitler's attack on France as a way to get some of the spoils, but Italy became more and more dependent on Germany. That is why a balance-of-power policy says, "Join the weaker side". Balance of power is a policy of States can try to balance power unilaterally by developing armaments or by forming alliances with other countries whose power resources help balance the top dog. This is one of the more interesting and powerful predictions in international politics. The contemporary Middle East is a good example. As we see in Chapter 6, when Iran and Iraq went to war in the early 1980s, some observers thought all Arab states would support Saddam Hussein's Iraq, which represented the Ba'ath Party and Arab forces, against Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, which represented Persian culture and the minority Shi'ite version of Islam. But Syria, despite having a secular leader from the Ba'ath Party, became an ally of Iran. Why? Because Syria was worried about the growing regional power of its neighbor Iraq. Syria chose to balance Iraqi power regardless of its ideological preferences. Efforts to use ideology to predict state behavior are often wrong, whereas counterintuitive predictions based on balancing power Of course, there are exceptions. Human behavior is not fully determined. Human beings have choices, and they do not always act as predicted. Certain situations predispose people toward a certain type of behavior, but we cannot always predict the details. If someone shouts "Fire!" in a crowded lecture hall, we could predict that students would run for the exits, but not which exits. If all choose one exit, the stampede may prevent many from getting out. Theories in international politics often have large exceptions. Even though balance of power in a policy sense is one of the strongest predictors in international politics, its record is far from perfect. Why do countries sometimes eschew balance of power and join the stronger rather than the weaker side, or stand aloof, thus ignoring the risks to their independence? Some countries may see no alternatives or believe they cannot affect the balance. If so, a small country may decide it has to fall within the sphere of influence of a great power while hoping that neutrality will preserve some freedom of action. For example, after World War II Finland was defeated by the Soviet Union and was far from the center of Europe. The Finns felt neutrality was safer than trying to become part of the European balance of power. They were in the Soviet sphere of influence, and the best they could do was bargain away independence in foreign policy for a large degree of control over their Another reason that balance-of-power predictions are sometimes wrong has to do with perceptions of threat. For example, a mechanical accounting of the power resources of countries in 1917 would have predicted that the United States would join World War I on the side of Germany because Britain, France, and Russia had 30 percent of the industrial world's resources while Germany and Austria had only 19 percent. This did not happen, in part, because the Americans perceived the Germans as militarily stronger and the aggressor in the war and because the Germans underestimated Perceptions America's of threat are often military influenced by potential. the proximity of the threat. A neighbor may be weak on some absolute global scale, but threatening in its region or local area. Consider Britain and the United States in the 1890s: Britain could have fought, but instead chose to appease the United States. It conceded to the United States on many issues, including the building of the Panama Canal, which allowed America to improve its naval position. One reason is that Britain was more worried about its neighbor Germany than it was about the distant Americans. The United States was larger than Germany, but proximity affected which threat loomed larger in British eyes. Proximity also helps explain the alliances after 1945. The United States was stronger than the Soviet Union, so why didn't Europe and Japan ally with the Soviet Union against the United States? The answer lies partly in the proximity of the threat. From the point of view of Europe and Japan, the Soviets were an immediate threat and the United States was far away. The Europeans and the Japanese called in the distant power to rebalance the situation in their immediate neighborhood. The fact Another exception to balance-of-power predictions relates to the growing role of economic interdependence in world affairs. According to a balance-of-power policy, France should not wish to see Germany grow, but because of economic integration, German growth stimulates French growth. French politicians are more. likely to be reelected when the French economy is growing. Therefore, a policy of trying to hold back German economic growth would be foolish because the French and German economies are so interdependent. In economic considerations, joint gains would often be lost by following too simple a balance-of-power policy. Finally, ideology sometimes causes countries to join the top dog rather than the underdog. Even in Thucydides' day, democratic city-states were more likely to align with Athens and oligarchies with Sparta. Britain's appeasement of the United States in the 1890s, or the Europeans joining with the Americans in an alliance of democracies after 1945, owed something to the influence of ideology, as well as to the proximity of the threat. On the other hand, we must be careful about predicting too much from ideology, because it often leads to colossal mistakes. Many Euro- peans believed that Stalin and Hitler could not come together in 1939 because they were at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum; but balance-of-power considerations led them to an alliance against the countries in the middle of the ideological spectrum. Likewise, in the 1960s the United States mistakenly treated China, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Cambodia as similar because they were all communist. A policy based on balance of power would Balance of Power as Multipolar Systems The third way in which the term balance of power is used is to describe multipolar historical cases. Europe in the nineteenth century is sometimes held up as the model of a moderate multipolar balance-of-power system. Historians such as Edward Gulick use the term classical balance of power to refer to the European system of the eighteenth century. In this sense, a balance of power requires a number of countries that follow a set of rules of the game that are generally understood. Since this use of the term balance of power refers to historical systems, we look at the two dimensions of systems, structure and process, that were introduced in Chapter 2. It is true that the multipolar balance-of-power system in the nineteenth century produced the longest interval without world war in the modern state system- 1815 to 1914-but we should not romanticize or oversimplify a complex story (Table 3.2). The structure of the nineteenth-century European balance of power changed toward the end of the century. From 1815 to 1870 five major powers often shifted alliances to prevent any one from dominating the Continent. From 1870 to 1907 there were six powers after the unification of Germany and Italy, but the growing strength of Germany eventually led to the problems that brought about the end of the system. Over the next seven years, the two alliance systems, the Triple Entente (Great Britain, France, and Russia) and the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria- Hungary, and Italy) polarized into tight blocs whose loss of flexibility contributed to the onset of World War I. In terms of process, the nineteenth-century balance-of-power system divides into five periods (Table 3.3). At the Congress of Vienna, the states of Europe brought France back into the fold and agreed on certain rules of the game to equalize the players. From 1815 to 1822 these rules formed the "Concert of Europe." The states concerted their actions, meeting frequently to deal with disputes and to maintain an equilibrium. They accepted certain interventions to keep governments in power domestically when their replacements might lead to a destabilizing reorientation of policy. This became more difficult with the rise of nationalism and democratic revolutions, but a truncated concert persisted from 1822 to 1854. This concert fell apart in midcentury when revolutions of liberal nationalism challenged the practices of providing territorial compensation or restoring governments to maintain equilibrium. Nationalism became too strong to allow such an easy cutting up of cheeses. The third period in the nineteenth-century balance-of-power system, from 1854 to 1870, was far less moderate and was marked by five wars. One, the Crimean War, was a classic balance-of-power war in which France and Britain prevented Russia from pressing the declining Ottoman Empire. The other conflicts, however, were related to the unification of Italy and Germany. Political leaders abandoned old rules and began to use nationalism for their expedient purposes. Bismarck, for example, was not an ideological German nationalist. He was a deeply conservative man who wanted Germany united under the Prussian monarchy. But he was quite prepared to use nationalist appeals and wars to defeat Denmark, Austria, and France in bringing this about. He returned to a more conservative style once he had accomplished his goals. The fourth period, 1870 to 1890, was the Bismarckian balance of power in which the new Prussian-led Germany played the key role. Bismarck played flexibly with a variety of alliance partners and tried to divert France overseas into imperialistic adventures and away from its lost province of Alsace-Lorraine. He limited German imperialism in order to keep the balancing act in Europe centered on Berlin. Bismarck's successors, however, were not as agile. From 1890 to 1914 there was a balance of power, but flexibility was gradually lost. Bismarck's successors did not renew his treaty with Russia; Germany became involved in overseas imperialism, challenged Britain's naval supremacy, and did not discourage Austrian confrontations with Russia over the Balkans. These policies exacerbated the fears of neighboring states that felt threatened by rising German power, further polarized the system, and led to World War I. ALLIANCES Balance of power as a multipolar system is intimately related to the concept of alliances. Alliances are formal or informal arrangements that sovereign states enter into with each other in order to ensure their mutual security. They can be motivated by military concerns: two medium-sized states might decide they will be more secure against threats from a larger state by forming an alliance. Traditionally, military alliances have been one of the focal points of international politics. States might also ally for nonmilitary reasons. As mentioned earlier, ideology often draws states together, though it can also cause conflicts. Economic concerns might be another reason for an alliance, particularly in those parts of the modern world where purely military concerns are receding. Alliances collapse for as many reasons as they form, but in general states cease to ally when they come to see each other as irrelevant or as threats to their security. That might occur because the regime in one state changes. Before, the two states might have shared a common ideology; now they are opposed. Thus China and the United States were allies when the Nationalists were in power before 1949 and enemies after the Communists came to power in 1949. Of course, there may be other reasons for an alliance to end. One state may grow more powerful. It might view the other state as a rival, while the other state might view it as a threat and look for alliances elsewhere to balance that threat. The hallmarks of Bismarck's alliance system were its flexibility and its complexity. The former made the resulting balance-of-power system stable because it allowed for occasional crises or conflicts without causing the whole edifice to crumble. Germany was at the center of the system, and Bismarck can be likened to an expert juggler who keeps several balls in the air. If one ball falls, the Yet complexity was also the system's weakness. When Bismarck was succeeded by less adroit leaders, the alliance system could not be maintained. Rather than channeling conflict away from Germany, as Bismarck did by encouraging France to expend its energies on colonial ventures in Africa, German decision makers in the years leading up to 1914 allowed alliances to lapse and tension to grow. Instead of renewing the German entente with Russia, the Kaiser let Russia float into an alliance with France and later Britain. What was once a fluid, multipolar alliance system gradually evolved into two alliance blocs, with dangerous consequences for European stability. THE ORIGINS OF WORLD WAR l World War I killed more than 15 million people. In one battle, the Somme, 1.3 million were killed and wounded. Compare that to 36,000 casualties when Bismarck defeated Austria in 1866. The United States lost about 55,000 troops in both Korea and Vietnam. World War I was a horrifying war of trenches, barbed wire, machine guns, and artillery that ground up a generation of Europe's youth. It not only destroyed people, it destroyed three European empires: the German, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian. Until World War I, the global balance of power was centered in Europe. After World War I, Europe still mattered, but the United States and Japan emerged as major players. World War I also ushered in the Russian Revolution in 1917 and the beginning of the ideological battles that racked the twentieth century. How could such an event happen? Prince Bernhard von Bülow, the German chancellor from 1900 to 1909, met with his successor, Bethmann Hollweg, in the chancellor's palace in Berlin shortly after Bethmann stood in the center of the room; shall I ever forget his face, the look in his eyes! There is a picture by some celebrated English painter, which shows the wretched scapegoat with a look of ineffable anguish in its eyes, such pain as I now saw in Bethmann's. For an instant we neither of us spoke. At last I said to him, "Well, tell me, at least, how it all happened." He raised his long, thin arms to heaven and answered in a dull, exhausted voice: "Oh, if I only knew!" In many later polemics on war guilt I have often wished it had been possible to produce a snapshot of Bethmann Hollweg standing there at the moment he said those words. Such a photograph would have been the best proof that this wretched man had never wanted war. Generations of historians have examined the origins of World War I and tried to explain why war came. As we will see, it is impossible to isolate one cause, but it is possible to break the question down into distinct levels. At each of these levels, the balance of power as a multipolar system and as the policy of separate states and individual leaders is essential to an understanding of the war's outbreak. As the alliance system became less flexible, the balance of power became less multipolar and the likelihood of war increased. Three Levels of Analysis Parts of the answer lie at each of the three levels of analysis. Parsimony suggests we start with the simplest causes, see how much they explain, and go on to more complexity as needed. Thus, we look first at the system-level explanations, both the structure and the process; then at the domestic societal level; and finally at the individuals. Then we use counterfactual thought experiments to see how the pieces fit together to explain World War 1 At the structural level, there were two key elements: the rise of German power and the increased rigidity in the alliance systems. The rise of German power was truly impressive. German heavy industry surpassed that of Great Britain in the 1890s, and the growth of German gross national product at the beginning of the century was twice that of Great Britain's. In the 1860s. Britain had 25 percent of the world's industrial production, but by 1913 its share had shrunk to 10 percent, and Germany's share had risen to 15 percent. Germany transformed some of its industrial strength into military capability, including a massive naval armaments program. A strategic aim of Germany's "Tirpitz Plan" of 1911 was to build the second largest navy in the world, thereby advancing itself as a world power. This expansion alarmed Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill (1874-1965). Britain began to fear becoming isolated and worried about how it would defend its far-flung empire. These fears were increased during the Boer War due to German sympathy for the Boers, the Dutch settlers in South Africa, against whom Britain was fighting at the end of the century. In 1907, Sir Eyre Crowe, permanent secretary of the British Foreign Office, wrote a document famous in the history of British foreign policy, a long memorandum in which he tried to interpret German foreign policy. He concluded that although German policy was vague and confused, Britain clearly could not allow one country to dominate the continent of Europe. Crowe argued that the British response was nearly a law of nature. Britain's response to Germany's rising power contributed to the second structural cause of the war: the increasing rigidity in the alliance systems in Europe. In 1904, parting from its geographically semi-isolated position as a balancer off the cost of Europe, Britain moved toward an alliance with France. In 1907, the Anglo-French partnership broadened to include Russia (already allied with France) and became known as the Triple Entente. Germany, seeing itself encircled, tightened its relations with Austria-Hungary. As the alliances became more rigid, diplomatic flexibility was lost. The balance of power was no longer characterized by the shifting alignments that characterized the balance of power during What about changes in the process! The structural shift to bipolarity affected the process by which the nineteenth-century balance-of-power system had worked. In addition, constructivists would point to three other reasons for the loss of moderation in the early twentieth-century balance of power. These included transnational ideas that were common to several countries. One was the rise of nationalism. In eastern Europe there was a movement calling for all Slavic- speaking peoples to come together. Pan-Slavism threatened both the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, which each had large Slavic populations. A nationalistic hatred of Slavsarose in Germany. German authors wrote about the inevitability of the Teutonic-Slavic battles and schoolbooks inflamed nationalist passions. Nationalism proved to be stronger than socialism when it came to bonding working classes together, and stronger than the capitalism that bound bankers together. Indeed, it proved stronger than family ties among the monarchs. Just before the war broke out, the Kaiser wrote to Russian Czar Nicholas II (1868-1918) and appealed to him to avoid war. He addressed his cousin as "Dear Nicky" and signed it "Yours, Willie." The Kaiser hoped that because war was impending over the assassination of a fellow royal family member, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Czar would see things the same way he did. But by then nationalism had overcome any sense of aristocratic or monarchical solidarity, and that family telegram had no impact in preventing war A second cause for the loss of moderation in the early twentieth- century balance of power was a rise in complacency about peace. The great powers had not been involved in a war in Europe for 40 years. There had been crises in Morocco in 1905-1906, in Bosnia in 1908, in Morocco again in 1911, and the Balkan wars in 1912-but they had all been manageable. However, the diplomatic compromises that resolved these conflicts caused frustration. Afterward, there was a tendency to ask, "Why should my side back down! Why didn't we make the other side give up more?" Additionally, there was growing acceptance of social Darwinism. Charles Darwin's ideas of survival of the fittest made good sense as a statistical construct about genetics of natural species over generations, but they were misapplied to human society and unique events. Darwin's ideas were used to justify the view that "the strong should prevail." And if the strong should prevail, why worry about peace! Long wars seemed unlikely, and many leaders A third contributing factor to the loss of flexibility in the early twentieth-century balance of power was German policy. As Eyre Crowe said, it was vague and confusing. There was a terrible clumsiness about the Kaiser's policy. The Germans were no different in having "world ambitions," but they managed to press them forward in a way that antagonized everybody at the same time-just the opposite of the way Bismarck played the system in the 1870s and 1880s. The Kaiser focused too much on hard power and neglected soft power. The Germans antagonized the British by starting a naval arms race (Figure 3.1). They antagonized the Russians over issues in Turkey and the Balkans, and I they antagonized the French over a protectorate in Morocco. The Kaiser tried to shock Britain into a friendship, believing that if he scared Britain enough, it would realize how important Germany was and pursue improved relations. Instead, he scared the British first into the arms of the French, and then into the arms of the Russians. So by 1914, the Germans thought they had to break out of this encirclement and thereby deliberately accepted the risk of war. Thus the rise of nationalism, increased complacency, social Darwinism, and German policy all contributed to the loss of moderation in the process of the international system and helped contribute to the onset of World War 1. The second level of analysis allows us to examine what was happening in domestic society and politics prior to World War I. We can safely reject one explanation at that level: Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin's argument that the war was caused by the financial capitalists. In Lenin's view, World War I was simply the final stage of capitalist imperialism. But the war did not arise out of imperialist conflicts on the colonial peripheries as Lenin had expected. In 1898, Britain and France confronted each other at Fashoda in the Sudan as the British tried to complete a north-south line from South Africa to Egypt, while the French tried to create an east-west line of colonies in Africa. If war had occurred then, it might have fit Lenin's explanation. But, in fact, the war broke out 16 years later in Europe, and even then bankers and businessmen strongly resisted it. Bankers believed the war would be bad for business. Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign minister, thought he had to follow Eyre Crowe's advice and that Britain had to prevent Germany from gaining mastery of the European balance of power. But Grey also worried about get- ring the London bankers to go along with declaring war. We can therefore reject the Leninist explanation. But two other domestic causes need to be taken more seriously: the internal crisis of the declining Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, and the domestic political situation in Germany. THE KAISER'S REACTION TO BRITAIN'S DECLARATION OF WAR Edward VII (the Kaiser's uncle and King of England 1901-19101 in the grave is still stronger than L. who am alive! And to think there have been people who believed England could be won over or pacified with this or that petty measure!!! Now this whole trickery must be ruthlessly exposed and the mask of Christian pacifism roughly and publicly torn from the face [of Britain), and the pharisaical sham peace put in the pillory!! And our consuls in Turkey and India, agents and so forth, must fire the whole Mohammedan world to fierce revolt against this hateful, lying, unprincipled nation of shopkeeper, for if we are to bleed to death, England will at least lose India. Both Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Turkey were multinational empires and were therefore threatened by the rise of nationalism. In addition, the Ottoman government was very weak, very corrupt, and an easy target for nationalist groups in the Balkans that wanted to free themselves from centuries of Turkish rule. The Balkan wars of 1912 pushed the Turks out, but in the next year the Balkan states then fell to war among themselves when dividing the spoils. The conflicts whetted the appetite of some Balkan states to fight Austria: if the Turks could be pushed out, then why not the Austrians too? Serbia took the lead among the Balkan states. Austria feared disintegration from this nationalistic pressure and worried about the loss of status that would result. In the end, Austria went to war against Serbia not because a Serb assassinated its Archduke, Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914), but because Austria wanted to weaken Serbia and prevent it from becoming a magnet for nationalism among the Balkan Slavs. General Conrad, the Austrian chief of staff in 1914, exposed his motives very clearly: "For this reason, and not as vengeance for the assassination, Austria-Hungary must draw the sword against Serbia.... The monarchy had been seized by the throat and had to choose between allowing itself to be strangled, and making a last effort to prevent its destruction." Disintegration of an empire because of nationalism was the more profound cause of the war, the slain Franz Ferdinand was a pretext. Another important domestic-level explanation of World War I lay in the domestic politics of Germany, German historian Fritz Fischer and his followers argue that Germany's social problems were a key cause of the war. According to Fischer, Germany's efforts toward world hegemony were an attempt by German elites to distract attention from the poor domestic integration of German society. He notes that Germany was ruled by a domestic coalition of landed aristocrats and some very large industrial capitalists, called the Coalition of Rye and Iron. This ruling coalition used expansionist policies to provide foreign adventures instead of domestic reform-circuses in place of bread. They viewed expansionism as an alter native to social democracy. Internal economic and social tensions are not sufficient to explain World War I, but they do help explain one source of the pressure that Germany put on the international What about the first level of analysis, the role of individuals! What distinguished the leadership on the eve of World War I was its mediocrity. The Austro-Hungarian emperor, Franz Josef (1830- 1926), was a tired old man who was putty in the hands of General Conrad and Count Berchtold, his duplicitous foreign minister. Ironically, Franz Ferdinand, the crown prince who was assassinated at Sarajevo, would have been a restraining force, for the potential heir had liberal political views. In Russia, Czar Nicholas II was an isolated autocrat who spent most of his time resisting change at home. He was served by incompetent foreign and defense ministers and was strongly influenced by his sickly and neurotic wife. Most important was Kaiser Wilhelm II (1859-1941), who had a great sense of inferiority. He was a blusterer, a weak man who was extremely emotional. He led Germany into a risky policy with out any skill or consistency. To quote von Bülow: William II did not want war, if only because he did not trust his nerves not to give way under the strain of any really critical situation. The moment there was danger, his majesty would become uncomfortably conscious that he could never lead an army into battle. He was well aware that he was neurasthenic. His more menacing jingo speeches were intended to give the foreigner the impression that here was another Frederick the Great or Napoleon. Personality did make a difference. There was something about the leaders, the Kaiser in particular, that made them significant contributory causes of the war. The relationship among some of the systemic, societal, and individual causes are illustrated in Figure 3.2. Was War Inevitable? When several causes exist, each of which could be sufficient, we call a situation overdetermined. If World War I was overdetermined, does that mean it was inevitable? The answer is no, war was not inevitable until it actually broke out in August 1914. And even then it was not inevitable that four years of carnage had to follow Let us distinguish three types of causes in terms of their proximity in time to the event we are studying. The most remote are deep causes, then come intermediate causes, and those immediately before the event are precipitating causes. By analogy, ask how the lights came to be on in your room. The precipitating cause is that you flicked the e switch, the intermediate cause is that someone wired the building, and the deep cause is that Thomas Edison discovered how to distribute electricity. Another analogy is building a fire: The logs are the deep cause, the kindling and paper are the intermediate cause, and the actual striking of the match is the precipitating cause. In World War I, the deep causes were changes in the structure of the balance of power and certain aspects of the domestic political systems. Especially important reasons were the rise of German strength, the development of a bipolar alliance system, the rise of nationalism and the resultant destruction of two declining empires, and German politics. The intermediate causes were German policy, the rise in complacency about peace, and the personal idiosyncrasies of the leaders. The precipitating cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand at Sarajevo by a Serbian terrorist. Looking back, things always look inevitable. Indeed, we might say that if the assassination had not occurred, some other precipitating incident would have caused the war. Some say precipitating events are like buses-they come along every ten minutes. Thus the specific event at Sarajevo was not all that important; some incident would probably have occurred sooner or later. This type of argument can be tested by counterfactual history. We can ask, "What if?" and, "What might have been?" as we look carefully at the history of the period. What if there had been no assassination in Sarajevo? What if the Social Democrats had come to power in Germany? There is also the issue of probability. The deep and intermediate causes suggested a high probability of war, but a high probability is not the same as inevitability. Using the metaphor of the fire again, logs and kindling may sit for a long time and never be lit. Indeed, if it rains before somebody comes along with a match, they may not catch Suppose there had been no assassination in Sarajevo in 1914, and no crisis occurred until 1916; what might have happened? One possibility is that the growth in Russian strength might have deterred Germany from recklessly backing Austria. In 1914, General von Moltke and Foreign Secretary Jagow, two of the German leaders who were most influential in precipitating the war, believed that war with Russia was inevitable. They knew Germany would have a problem fighting a war on two fronts and would have to knock out one side before fighting the other. Russia, although target, was technologically backward and had a poor transportation system, so it could be put off for the second strike. They reasoned that Germany ought first to rush westward to knock out the French. After victory in the west, Germany could turn east and take its time to defeat the Russians. Indeed, that was the Schlieffen Plan, the war plan of the German general staff, which called for a rapid sweep through Belgium (violating Belgian But this strategy might have become obsolete by 1916 because Russia was using French money to build railroads. In the 1890s it would have taken the Russian two or three months before they could have transported all their troops to the German front, giving Germany ample time to fight France first. By 1910, that time had shrunk to 18 days, and the German planners knew they no longer had a large mar- gin of safety. By 1916, the margin would have been gone and Germany might have had to drop its two-front strategy. Consequently, some German leaders thought that a war in 1914 was better than a war later. They wanted to seize the crisis to wage and win a preventive war. If no assassination and crisis had occurred in 1914, and the world had made it to 1916 without a war, it is possible the Germans might have felt deterred, unable to risk a two-front war. They might have been more careful before giving Austria a blank check, as they did in 1914. Or they might have dropped the Schlieffen. Plan and concentrated on a war in the east only. Or they might have come to terms with Great Britain or changed their view that the offense had the advantage in warfare. In summary, in another two years, a variety of changes related to Russian strength might have prevented the war. Without war, German industrial strength would have continued to grow. Ironically, without war, the British historian A. J. P. Taylor has speculated, Germany might have won mastery over We can also raise counterfactuals about what might have happened in Britain's internal affairs if two more years had passed Death of Liberal England, historian George Dangerfield tells of Britain's domestic turmoil. The Liberal Party was committed to withdrawing British troops from Ireland while the Conservatives, particularly in Northern Ireland, were bitterly opposed. There was prospect of mutiny in the British army. If the Ulster Revolt had developed, it is quite plausible that Britain would have been so internally preoccupied that it would not have been able to join the coalition with France and Russia. Certainly many historically significant changes could have occurred in two more years of peace. What Kind of War Another set of counterfactuals raises questions about what kind of war would have occurred rather than whether a war would have occurred. It is true that Germany's policies frightened its neighbors and that Germany in turn was afraid of being encircled by the Triple Entente, so it is reasonable to assume war was more likely than not. But what kind of war! The war did not have to be what we now remember as World War L Counterfactually, four other wars were possible. One was a simple local war. Initially, the Kaiser expected a replay of the Bosnian crisis of 1908-1909 when the Germans backed the Austrians, and Austria was there- fore able to make Russia stand down in the Balkans. On July 5, 1914, the Kaiser promised full support to Austria-Hungary. And with that, he went on vacation. When the Kaiser returned from his cruise, he found that the Austrians had filled in the blank check he left them by issuing an ultimatum to Serbia. When he realized that, the Kaiser made great efforts to keep the war from escalating, thus the Nicky-Willie telegrams referred to earlier. If his efforts had been successful, we might today recall not World War I, but merely a relatively minor Austrian- Serbian War of August 1914 A second counterfactual possibility was a one-front war. When the Russians mobilized their troops, the Germans also mobilized. The Kaiser asked General von Moltke whether he could limit the preparations to just the eastern front. Von Moltke replied that it was impossible because any change in the timetables for assembling the troops and supplies would create a logistical nightmare. He told the Kaiser that if he tried to change the plans, he would have a disorganized mass instead of an army. However, after the war, General von Staab of the railway division of the German army admitted that it might have been possible, after all, to alter the mobilization schedules successfully. Had the Kaiser known that and insisted, there might have been a one-front war. A third counterfactual is to imagine a two-front war without Britain: Germany and Austria versus France and Russia (Figure 3.3). If the British had not been there to make the difference, Germany might well have won. It is possible that Britain might not have joined if Germany had not invaded Belgium, although Belgium was not the main cause of Britain entering the war. For some people, like Sir Edward Grey and the Foreign Office, the main reason for entering the war was the danger of German control of the Continent. But Britain was a democracy, and the Liberal party in the Cabinet was split. The left Liberals opposed war, but when Germany swept through Belgium a and violated Belgian neutrality, it allowed the prowar Liberals to overcome the reluctance of the antiwar Liberals and to repair the split in the British Cabinet. Finally, a fourth counterfactual is a war without the United States. By early 1918, Germany might have won the war if the United States had not tipped the military balance by its entry in 1917. One of the reasons the United States became involved was the German submarine campaign against Allied and American shipping. There was also some German clumsiness: Germany sent a message, now known as the Zimmermann telegram, instructing its embassy in Mexico to approach the Mexican government regarding an alliance against the United States. Washington regarded these intercepted instructions as a hostile act. These factors ensured that the United States would enter the war. Our counterfactual analysis first suggests ways in which the war might not have occurred in 1914, and second, ways in which the war that occurred did not have to become four years of carnage, which destroyed Europe as the heart of the global balance of power. It suggests that World War I was probable, but not inevitable. Human choices mattered. The Funnel of Choices History is path dependent. Events close in over time, degrees of freedom are lost, and the probability of war increases. But the funnel of choices available to leaders might open up again, and degrees of freedom could be regained (see Figure 3.4). If we start in 1898 and ask what was the most likely war in Europe, the answer would have been war between France and Britain, which were eyeball to eyeball in a colonial dispute in Africa. But after the British and French formed the Entente in 1904, a Franco-British war looked less likely. The first Moroccan crisis in 1905 and the Bosnian crisis in 1908 made war with Germany look more likely. But some interesting events occurred in 1910. Bethmann Hollweg, the German chancellor, sought détente with Britain. Britain implied that it would remain neutral in any European war if Germany would limit its navy. At that same time, it looked as if renewed colonial friction between Britain and Russia in Asia and between the British and the French But the funnel closed once more in 1911 with the second Moroccan crisis. When France sent troops to help the Sultan of Morocco, Germany demanded compensation in the French Congo and sent a gunboat to Agadir on the coast of Morocco. Britain prepared its fleet. French and German bankers lobbied against war, and the Kaiser pulled back. But these events deeply affected public opinion and raised fears about German intentions. Although the Balkan wars in 1912 and 1913 and the increased pressure on Austria set the scene for 1914, there was also a renewed effort at détente in 1912. Britain sent Lord Haldane, a prominent Liberal politician, to Berlin, and the British and Germans resolved a number of the issues. Also, by this time it was clear that Britain had won the naval arms race. Perhaps the funnel In June 1914, the feeling that relations were improving was strong enough for Britain to send four of its great Dreadnought battleships to Kiel, Germany, for a state visit. If Britain had thought war was about to occur, the last thing it would have done was put four of its prime battleships in an enemy harbor. Clearly, the British were not thinking about war at that point. In fact, on June 28, British and German sailors were walking together along the quay in Kiel when they heard the news that a Serbian terrorist had shot an Austrian archduke in a faraway place called Sarajevo. History has its surprises, and once again, probable is not the same as inevitable. Lesson of History Again Can we draw any lessons from this history! We must be careful about lessons. Analogies can mislead, and many myths have been created about World War 1. For example, some say World War I was an accidental war. World War I was not purely accidental. Austria went to war deliberately. And if there was to be a war, Germany preferred a wat in 1914 to a war later. There were miscalculations over the length and depth of the war, but that is not the same as an accidetital war. It is also said that the war was caused by the arms race in Europe. Bur by 1912, the naval arms race was over, and Britain had won. While there was concern in Europe about the growing strength of the armies, the view that the war was precipi rated directly by the arms race is too simple. On the other hand, we can draw some valid warnings from the long slide into World War I. One lesson is to pay attention to the process of a balance-of-power system as well as its structure or distribution of power. Here the constructivists add an important point that some realists miss. Moderation evolves from the process. Stability is not assured by the distribution of power alone. Another useful lesson is to beware of complacency about peace or believing that the next crisis is going to fit the same pattern as the last crisis: 1914 was supposed to be a repeat of the Bosnian crisis of 1908, though clearly it was not. In addition, the experience of World War I suggests it is important to have military forces that are stable in Today's world is different from the world of 1914 in two important ways: One is that nuclear weapons have made large- scale wars more dangerous, and the other, as constructivists note, is that the ideology of war, the acceptance of war, is much weaker. In 1914, war was thought to be inevitable, a fatalistic view compounded by the social Darwinist argument that war should be welcome because it would clear the air like a good summer storm. On the eve of World War, I that was indeed the mood. Winston Churchill's book The World Crisis captures this feeling very well: There was a strange temper in the air. Unsatisfied by material prosperity, the nations turned fiercely toward strife, internal or external. National passions, unduly exalted in the decline of religion, burned beneath the surface of nearly every land with fierce, if shrouded, fires. Almost one might think the world CHRONOLOGY: THE ROAD TO WORLD WAR I 1905-1906 First Moroccan crisis Kaiser visits Tangier as Germany attempts to supplant France; settled to France's satisfaction at the Algeciras conference 1908 Austria proclaims annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slavic territories it had administered since 1878; Serbia threatens war but is powerless without Russian backing; Germany supports Austria-Hungary, deterring Russia 1911 Second Moroccan crisis: German gunboat Panther appears at Agadir in attempt to force France into colonial concessions in other areas in return for German recognition of French claims in Morocco 1912 First Balkan War: Bulgaria, Serbia, and Greece defeat Turkey and gain Thrace and Salonika; Austria-Hungary helps create Albania as check to Serbian power 1913 Second Balkan War: Serbia, Greece, and Romania defeat Bulgaria and gain territory at the latter's expense. 1914 June 28 Assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife at Sarajevo July 5 Austria seeks and obtains German backing against Serbia July 23 Austria sends harsh ultimatum to Serbia July 25 Serbia rejects some terms of ultimatum, seek Russian support July 26 British Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey proposes conference to resolve the crisis, Germany and Austria reject proposal July 28 Austria declares war on Serbia July 29 Austrian forces bombard Belgrade, Russia mobilizes against Austria. July 30 Russia and Austria order general mobilization, French troops withdraw 10 kilometers from German border July 31 Germany delivers ultimatum to Russia, demanding demobilization, Russia does not reply August 1 Germany declares war on Russia; British fleet mobilizes, France mobilizes as German forces invade Luxembourg August 2 Germany demands unimpeded passage through Belgium August 3 Belgium rejects German ultimatum; Germany declares wat on France August 4 German troops march into Belgium, Britain declares war on