The Origins of Major War

by Copeland, Dale C.

• ISBN13: 9780801437502
• ISBN10: 0801437504
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-09-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

One of the most important questions of human existence asks what drives nations to war -- especially massive, system-threatening war. Much military history focuses on the who, when, and where of war; in this riveting book, Dale C. Copeland brings attention to bear on why governments make decisions that lead to, sustain, and intensify conflicts. Copeland presents detailed historical narratives of several twentieth-century cases, including World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. He highlights instigating factors that transcend individual personalities, styles of government, geography, and historical context to reveal remarkable consistency across several major wars usually considered dissimilar. The result is a series of challenges to established interpretive positions and provocative new readings of the causes of conflict.

Classical realists and neorealists claim that dominant powers initiate war. Hegemonic stability realists believe that wars are most often started by rising states. Copeland offers an approach stronger in explanatory power and predictive

Author Biography

Dale C. Copeland is Associate Professor of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
Abbreviations	ix
Introduction	1	(10)
Rethinking Realist Theories of Major War	11	(24)
Foreign Policy Choices and the Probability of Major War	35	(21)
German Security and the Preparation for World War I	56	(23)
The July Crisis and the Outbreak of World War I	79	(39)
The Rise of Russia and the Outbreak of World War II	118	(28)
Bipolarity, Shifting Power, and the Origins of the Cold War, 1945--1950	146	(30)
The Berlin and Cuban Missile Crises	176	(33)
Major War from Pericles to Napoleon	209	(26)
The Implications of the Argument	235	(12)
Appendix	247	(8)
Notes	255	(58)
Index	313