Miller, Steven E., ed. 1985. Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War. Princeton : Princeton University Press, 186 pp., pb £5.00 and hc
| Published date | 01 June 1987 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234338702400212 |
| Date | 01 June 1987 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
206
Miller,
Steven
E.,
ed.
1985.
Military
Strategy
and
the
Origins
of
the
First
World
War.
Prince-
ton :
Princeton
University
Press,
186
pp.,
pb
£5.00
and
hc.
Why
did
tensions
in
the
East
European
periph-
ery
escalate
into
a
world
war?
This
collection
of
articles
-
originally
published
in
the
1984-vol-
ume
of
International
Security
-
focuses
on
the
paradoxical
belief
in
all
major
great
powers
at
the
turn
of
the
century
that
a
war
would
be
won
quickly.
Actually
any
serious
analysis
pointed
against
such
a
conclusion:
the
dense
railway-network
made
flexible
forms
of
defense
possible;
new
weapons,
smokeless
gunpowder,
machineguns
and
far-reaching
rifles
made
the
traditional
practice
of
trench
warfare
im-
possible.
The
military
elites
could
have
learned
that
from
the
experience
of
the
Boer
and
the
Russo-Japanese
wars,
but
as
Michael
Howard
points
out,
they
were
unwilling
to
learn.
They
should
have
been
able
to
realize
that
any
escal-
ation
into
a
major
conflict
would
make
the
coun-
tries’
performance
dependent
on
their
major,
long-term
power-resources,
as
Paul
Kennedy
shows.
But
the
elites
were
all
victims
of
the
’cult
of
the
offensive’,
a
Darwinist
type
of
political
realism.
In
the
central
contribution
of
this
collec-
tion,
Stephen
Van
Evera
shows
that
this cult
influenced
many
of
the
expectations,
dilemmas
and
decisions
which
make
up
the
complex
origins
of
World
War
I.
But
Van
Evera
does
not
really
explain
why
such
an
ideological
cult
was
so
per-
vasive
among
military
leaders
and
statesmen.
Jack
Snyder
attempts
an
explanation
in
terms
of
the
logic
of
a
maturing,
pathological
and
isolated
militarist
subsystem.
But
one
still
feels
that
there
is
a
lack
of
interdisciplinary
communication,
since
both
Snyder
and
Van
Evera
stick
to
the
traditional
domain
of
security
studies,
disregarding
both
the
potential
of
Schumpeter’s
old
thesis
about
the
relationship
between
aristocracy
and
warmonger-
ing,
and
Arno
Mayer’s
more
recent
historical
studies
along
the
same
lines.
LM
Piore,
Michael
J.
&
Charles
F.
Sabel
1984.
The
Second
Industrial
Divide.
New
York:
Basic
books,
354
pp.,
hc.
According
to
economist
Piore
and
political
economist
Sabel,
both
of
MIT,
the
devel-
opment
of
the
mass
production
complex
in
early
20th
century
US
was
a
first
industrial
divide.
Mass
production
was
not
a
technical
necessity,
but
a
result
of
decisions
(Ch.
2),
reproduced
by
an
institutional
complex
which
they
trace
at
both
micro
(the
large
cor-
poration
-
Ch.
3)
and
macro
levels
(collective
bargaining
and
the
Keynesian
system
of
macro-
regulation
-
Ch.
4).
This
complex
was
emulated
by
other
first
world
countries
through
the
postwar
era.
But
there
were
specific
US
elements
which
were
not
emulated.
At
the
macro
level,
only
the
US
could
occupy
a
hegemonic
position
in
the
international
monetary
system,
and
at
the
micro
level,
the
US
’feudalist’
system
of
shop
floor
con-
trol
is
unique
(Ch.
5).
Similarly,
the
’amer-
icanization’
of
Europe
and
Japan
involved
an
interaction
between
national
conditions
and
international
influence.
One
result
was
different
national
varieties
of
the
industrial
dualism
between
craft
and
mass
production
methods
(Ch.
6).
The
economic
crisis
of
the
1970s
weakened
the
mass
production
complex,
which had
been
at
the
roots
of
postwar
prosperity
(Ch.
7).
Studying
the
micro
level
responses
of
the
large
corpor-
ations,
Piore
&
Sabel
argue
that
their
attempts
to
create
a
privatized
international
Keynesianism
failed
(Ch.
8).
The
firms
that
adapted
successfully
to
the
crisis
relied
on
flexible
specialization
and
craftlike
production
methods.
Such
comparative
contrasts
are
also
traced
at
the
macro
level,
since
the
countries
which
did
best
were
those
where
craft-methods
had
partly
survived
(Japan,
West
Germany -
Ch.
9).
Ch.
10
specifies
the
book’s
subtitle,
’Possibilities
for
Prosperity’,
by
coun-
terposing
international
Keynesianism
and
flexible
specialization
as
responses
to
contemporary
soc-
io-economic
problems.
The
grand
conclusion
is
that
we
are
now
facing
a
second
industrial
divide
in
which
craft
principles
may
again
defeat
the
principles
of
mass
production.
This
promises
a
more
decentralized
future,
and
Piore
&
Sabel
argue
that
flexible
specialization
particularly
fits
the
US
socio-political
legacy.
Ch.
11
contains,
for
once,
a
positive
utopia
for
US
developments,
but
many
readers
will
find
such
populist
optimism
hard
to
accept.
The
lack
of
discussion
on
the
military-industrial
aspect
of
a
possible
new
US
flexible
specialization
will
probably
annoy
peace
researchers.
The
strength
of
the
book
rather
lies
in
its
substantive,
institutionalist
analyses.
LM
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