Origins of Major War

By Dale C. Copeland

Book Overview

One of the most important questions of human existence is 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 capacity than these three brands of realism: he examines not only the power resources but the shifting power differentials of states. He specifies more precisely the conditions under which state decline leads to conflict, drawing empirical support from the critical cases of the twentieth century as well as major wars spanning from ancient Greece to the Napoleonic Wars.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801487579
• ISBN13: 9780801487576
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

A Significant Addition To Understanding the Causes of War

Dale Copeland's work represents a huge step forward in understanding why major wars occur. The debates over the origins of war have focused on whether or not the system is bipolar or multipolar, on the role of alliances in drawing states into war, on states trying to dominate the system, and other variables as well. Copeland has finally put all these differing views together into one coherent theory, adding a major causal mechanism: States' views of future power trends. States are most likely to start a major when when they see themselves in decline in relation to another state. They initiate a war to protect themselves from that growing states' threat to them in the near future. This theory explain why alliance do not really drag states into war, and why the number of poles is important, but not the determining factor. Bipolarity is more seen as more likely to lead to war, since a state must be willing to take on the entire system to succeed in a multipolar system, whereas it need only defeat one adversary in a bipolar world. Copeland backs up his theory with copious historical evidence, which seems to fit his theory. Furthermore, he breaks new ground in his empirical explanations. Historians will no doubt be intrigued by his contention that Germany deliberatly initiated the hostilities in World War One to defeat the rising Russian menace. He explains the Second World War in similiar terms. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he looks at pre-modern historical cases as well, dating back to Ancient Greece through the Napoleanic era. Finally, this book is very readable. Academic writing tends to be cluttered with jargon and in generally is very difficult to read. This book is not. Copeland writes with an easy style that is a pleasure to read. This is one of the few academic books that can be read by people in the field, and by those who are just interested in the question Copeland tries to answer. Highly recommended for everyone!