Review: International Relations Theory: The Onset of World War
| Date | 01 March 1991 |
| Published date | 01 March 1991 |
| Author | William B. Moul |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209104600113 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS/INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS THEORY
191
credibly
their
desire
for
a
stable
outcome
by
de-emphasizing
their
willingness
to
resort
to
threats
of
pre-emption
and
retaliation.
Formu-
lating
such
lessons
in
game-theoretical parlance
would pose
difficult
dilemmas
for
Brains
and
Kilgour,
but
lessons
for
leaders on
how
to
ensure human
survival,
and
not
prescriptions
for
the
fainthearted,
are
what
is
needed
so
as
to
avert
catastrophe.
Erika
Simpson/Toronto
THE
ONSET
OF
WORLD
WAR
Manus
I.
Midlarsky
Winchester
MA:
Unwin
Hyman,
1988,
XVi,
268pp,
US$
39.9 5
Manus Midlarsky
seeks
to
explain
eight
incidents
of
world
war
in
terms
of
the
absence
of
a
hierarchical
equilibrium.
A
system
of
states
is
hierarchical
if
there
are
two
or
more
groups
composed
of
great powers
and
weaker states
as
well
as
a relatively
large
number
of
independent
weak
states.
Crucial
to
this
notion
of
hierarchy are
power
differences
within
each
camp,
not
differences
in
power
between
camps.
There
is
an
equilibrium
when
there
is
an 'average
equality
in
the
beginnings
and
endings'
(p
21)
of
serious
interstate
disputes.
When
conflicts
accu-
mulate
over
time,
and
when
conflicts
from one
arena
(great
power
versus
great
power) are
tied
to
conflicts
in
another
arena
(great
power
versus
weaker
states),
there
is
disequilibrium.
While
Midlarsky
discusses
eight
world
wars
from the
Peloponne-
sian
War
through
World War
II,
statistical analyses
are
possible
only
with
the
world
wars
of
our
century.
During
the
1815-99
period,
there
was
an
average equality
in
the beginnings
and
endings
of
disputes;
after
the
formation
of
the
alliance
between
France
and
Russia
in 1893,
disputes
tended
to
accumulate
and
to
overlap
conflict
arenas.
The
statistical
demonstration
of
these tendencies, particularly the
analysis
of
conflict
dynamics shortly before
the
1908
Bosnian
crisis
and
before
the
guns
of
August,
is
impressive.
The
dynamics
of
the
twenty-year
crisis
differed,
and
Midlarsky
argues
that
the
difference
is
one between
a
structural
war
(World War
I)
and
a
mobilization war
(World
War
II). Mobilization
wars
are
caused
by
the
mobilization
of
power
by
an
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