We’re learning the wrong lessons from World War I - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/27/were-learning-wro...

This week, we celebrate peace, notably, the centennial of the peace treaty that brought an end to the First
World War. The average person today may take this for granted: We live during an era in which war and
violence are no longer celebrated. But this progress is a double-edged sword because the lack of large-scale
war, combined with weariness from almost two decades of continuous American deployment to the Middle
East, makes us numb to the roads that can lead to a larger conflagration.

Because we are transitioning toward a more competitive and perilous international order, today should also
be an occasion to reflect on the cause of a war that sucked in established and aspiring powers alike during a
time of peace. After all, it is much better to learn from war than to live through it.

With more than 30,000 accounts of the war written in the English language, World War I has commanded
the attention of scholars and politicians since it ended. They have asked the question: What brought those
nations into such a devastating conflict? What lessons can we learn from it to stop future localized crises from
spinning out of control?

The most popular description of it is that it was an “accidental war.” This argument posits that political
leaders absent-mindedly slid into war without realizing the magnitude of the risk they were taking. New
archival evidence has shown a more disturbing truth that historical figures were making decisions with their
eyes wide open.

This is the pressing lesson we need to understand now. Great-power rivalry can dangerously affect decision-
making during a time of peace. In the words of Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan, “National rivalries
fueled an arms race which in turn deepened insecurities and so added yet more impetus to the race. Nations
looked for allies to make up for their own weaknesses and their decisions help to bring Europe closer to war.”

This happened in four ways. First was the rivalry between Germany and Great Britain. From the turn of the
20th century, the two were locked in an economic competition and an arms race for naval supremacy. By
1913, leaders in both countries announced that the rivalry was at an end, but the dynamic seemed to persist.
On the eve of the war, neither appeared willing to tolerate the other’s dominance.

The second way involved Russia and Japan. Russia lost a war against Japan in 1905. With much

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We’re learning the wrong lessons from World War I - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/27/were-learning-wro...

embarrassment, it was forced to give up territory in Asia. Coupled with the internal instability of a failed
revolution that same year, Russia reemerged in 1913 with an ambitious plan known as the “great army
program,” which aimed to expand its military and recover its lost prestige. This, in turn, made a faction of
German political and military leaders nervous about encroaching rivals that would make it difficult for
Germany to complete its rise.

Third, because France posed a threat to German continental power, the French anticipated an eventual
German attack that would need to be either repelled or preempted. The solution was an alliance with Russia
that committed the latter to preparing for war against Germany. France attempted to influence Moscow’s
military planning through loans and weapons sales.

Lastly, the declining Austro-Hungarian empire faced ongoing tensions with Serbia, which had liberated itself
from Turkish rule and presented a challenge to Vienna’s claim to govern the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The empire demanded that Serbia give it a role in investigating and punishing the Serbian culprits behind the
assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Although Serbia agreed to most of Vienna’s demands in the
aftermath of the assassination, it rejected this one because it believed it violated its national sovereignty.
Unprepared to tolerate a smaller nation restricting its actions, Vienna initiated the hostilities that dragged the
other great power nations into war.

What made this war particularly tragic was that it came on the heels of an unprecedented multi-decade era of
relative peace. Competitive nationalism and prideful thinking didn’t just result in war. It wrecked these
nations and empires. The Austro-Hungarian empire broke up after the war. Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian
regime. Germany was held responsible for the war and suffered economic consequences. French society was
shocked by the high economic and moral cost of the war, leading one scholar to describe the interwar period
as “a society sometimes on the brink of civil war.” Great Britain went from being the largest banker in the
world to being a debtor nation.

This history of rivalries gone wrong has resonated with world leaders ever since. The memory of World War I
particularly stuck out for John F. Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Faced with a choice to
respond to Soviet missiles in Cuba with American military maneuvers or diplomacy, Kennedy was afraid that
his military advisers would push him over the edge in a World War I-like episode of prideful thinking based
on competition, leading to conflict. As a result, he suggested that these advisers read historian Barbara
Tuchman’s popular World War I narrative history, “The Guns of August.” “I am not going to follow a course
which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time [and call it] The Missiles of October,”
Kennedy said.

World War I can teach us that it is not just the expectation of irrationality from rogue leaders such as
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un that should concern us. Rather, it is the unchecked emotions of leaders in
difficult times. War in 1914 resulted from leaders who considered themselves upholders of peace, but

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We’re learning the wrong lessons from World War I - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/06/27/were-learning-wro...

nevertheless became embroiled in a conflict. These world leaders were not “sleepwalking.” They were making
poor decisions.

This scenario — prideful policymaking leading to war — could easily happen again. The global ambitions of
China, the resuscitation of Russia’s foreign policy, the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and the
emerging cybersphere of artificial intelligence are all difficult issues in which the inherent competitive
dynamic could easily give way to conflict.

The stakes are much higher this time. We don’t know the effect of modern technology on warfare because
there have not been any large-scale wars since 1945. Conflicts since then, like Vietnam, were notably lopsided.
What we can be sure of, thanks to studies on the origins of World War I, is that great-power competition can
go haywire and bring down an entire world order.

To be sure, it is important not to back down against dangerous aggressors. As Kennedy demonstrated, with
historical mindfulness it is possible to do so without leading to war. Otherwise, just like in 1914, we may find
ourselves embroiled in unbridled competition that gives way to a new class of devastating war.

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