The First World War as Catalyst and Epiphany: The Case of Henry P. Davison

The experience of the First World War was central to the emergence of a trans-Atlantic elite committed to close collaboration and an international alliance, either formal or de facto, between Great Britain and the United States. The reactions to the conflict of Henry P. Davison, dominant partner in J. P. Morgan and Company, illustrate the manner in which the First World War was catalytic in the creation of an Atlanticist elite. Davison, moreover, experienced something like a personal epiphany during the war, metamorphosing from a hard-driving businessman into an international philanthropist who developed ambitious schemes to remake the world. For seven years, Davison energetically sought to affect the course, outcome, and consequences of the First World War. Fundamental to Davison's worldview were the desirability and necessity of Anglo–American collaboration, on which all his other plans were predicated. When the war ended, Davison proposed almost visionary schemes, on the one hand to provide massive American governmental and private economic assistance to finance European postwar relief and reconstruction efforts and, on the other, to establish an international Red Cross organization that would mount a massive campaign to eradicate global public health problems. Although abortive in the short term, in the longer run his plans proved prophetic, anticipating the post–Second World War Marshall Plan and World Health Organization.     

从战争到战争:论一战对二战的影响

本文以第一次世界大战与第二次世界大战的战争本质中的共同点为基础展开讨论。这两场战争都是大规模的工业化战争,均历经过度的、失控的暴力、死亡和破坏。它们不仅见证了包括新技术和强大武器在内的军事方法和战争手段的发展,也见证了全面的扩张,或者说是战争向人类生活各个领域的越界(Entgrenzung)。在两次世界大战中,扩张或者侵略的概念已经延伸并超越总体战的概念范畴。如果忽略德国记忆的存在和对大战争的解读,只谈第二次战争是绝对不全面的,20世纪30年代的德国社会目睹了——一代人的——第一次世界大战的异化,即一战逐渐失去了在记忆中的重要位置。随后的世界大战用大规模屠杀、破碎的档案和巨大的破坏强化了该进程。更多的受害者,特别是平民百姓的死难,对六百万欧洲犹太人的谋杀使这场规模宏大的暴力的越界达到了巅峰,这一切都使第一次世界大战似乎成了第二次世界大战的灾难的序曲。     

The Tragedy of Liberalism How Globalization Caused the First World War

The belief that globalization enhances peace, a central tenet of liberal theory, enjoys substantial support in recent scholarship on trade and conflict. To conclude that liberalism is right, however, is premature and wrong. Liberal theory is not sufficiently grounded in international trade theory to show how globalization generates constraints on military force, nor does it adequately link these constraints to strengthened peace. This article uses the Heckscher-Ohlin model of trade to connect globalization's economic effects to increased constraints on military force and then explores how, in the nineteenth century, globalization affected European peace. As liberal theory predicts, globalization generated substantial constraints on military force in prewar Europe. Yet there are important flaws in liberalism's logic linking these constraints to strengthened international peace. Contrary to liberal theory, globalization did not strengthen prospects for peace in prewar Europe but was a major cause of the First World War.     

We Cannot Go On: Disruptive Innovation and the First World War Royal Navy

Insights from Disruptive Innovation theory (DI) are often used in the formulation, implementation, and evaluation of national security policy. DI explains why successful companies are sometimes defeated by new competitors with relatively unsophisticated products. Although DI is highly influential in the business literature, its applicability to military doctrine has not been persuasively shown. Proposed here is a more abstract and general version of DI, which improves its foundations, adapts it to militaries, and suggests a framework for the reliable identification of disruptive innovations. This new theory is tested by examining the Royal Navy before and during World War I and evaluating how well it explains the Royal Navy's success at developing Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) to protect the battlefleet from submarine attacks and the near failure at implementing convoy tactics to protect merchant shipping. This generalized version of DI successfully explains several key features of the case.     

The Alliance Politics of Concerted Accommodation: Entente Bargaining and Italian and Ottoman Interventions in the First World War

This article examines the challenges allies face in coordinating diplomatic efforts to accommodate and peel off their main enemy's potential allies. It elucidates the key dimensions, and the underlying coordination dynamics, of this problem of “concerted accommodation,” and it develops propositions about the conditions that shape the efficacy of such efforts. The argument links allies’ strength to their divergent or convergent assessments of the target state's ability to tip the war toward victory or defeat. Divergent assessments foster weak allied efforts that are likely to fail, but when allies agree that the target is a potential “war-tipper,” they will support their concerted accommodation policy with more robust cooperation that is more likely to work. The causal arguments and mechanisms are examined in a paired comparison analysis of two First World War cases: the Entente's efforts to induce (1) Ottoman neutrality and (2) Italian intervention.     

The Commission for Relief in Belgium and the Political Diplomatic History of the First World War

During the First World War, the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) supplied occupied Belgium with food, provoking discord between military and political leaders on both sides. The CRB's work undermined the Allies' economic blockade of the enemy, attracting military criticism. In Germany, politicians favoured sustaining the food supply to prevent unrest, whilst the Army wanted to exploit Belgium's resources. From 1916 onwards, the CRB became a bone of contention in Germany in the dispute between military and political leaders about unrestricted submarine warfare. It also loomed large in the political and military debate about the attitude to neutral countries: the Allies wanted them to brave the German threat and cooperate with the blockade policy—otherwise, food imports from Allied countries would be forbidden. Tonnage and food for the CRB were incorporated into the negotiations with neutral countries about their imports and the use of home-grown produce. The debates about the CRB thus exemplify the relationship between military events and the war's economic and social significance. This study of the CRB shows that political/diplomatic historiography can bridge the gap between the military and socioeconomic history of the First World War.     

伊拉克战争与美国的国际地位

自2003年3月23日美国发动伊拉克战争迄今已历四年。四年来,美国软硬实力、内政外交因为这场战争而发生了什么样的变化?国际战略形势又随之出现了哪些变迁?对中国而言,加速发展的战略机遇期是否还将持续?伊拉克战争本身又带来哪些启示?围绕这些问题,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“伊拉克战争四周年国际战略形势”专题研讨会,邀请一些知名国际问题专家进行了深入探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者更好地理解和把握这些问题有所裨益。     

Identity,Insecurity, and Great Power Politics:The Tragedy of German Naval Ambition Before the First World War

Why did Germany pursue naval expansion at the turn of the twentieth century? This question has long puzzled scholars of international security, who consider German naval ambition to be an instance of suboptimal arming—a decision that decreased Germany's overall security and risked the survival of the German state. This article argues that the social desire to be recognized as a world power guided Germany's decision to challenge British naval hegemony. From the beginning of its naval planning, Germany had one clear aim: a powerful fleet of battleships stationed in the North Sea would alter the political relationship with Britain in such a way that it could no longer ignore Germany's claim to world power status. Reconceptualizing Germany's naval ambition as a struggle for recognition elucidates the contradictions at the center of German naval strategy, explaining how the doomed policy could proceed despite its certain failure. The article concludes that the power-maximizing practices of great powers should be seen as an important component of identity construction and an understudied dimension of contemporary security practice.     

Rage of Honor: Entente Indignation and the Lost Chance for Peace in the First World War

Why the First World War ended in 1918 and not earlier remains a major puzzle. We propose a new theory that emphasizes how honor prolongs wars beyond what rationalist theories can explain. It argues that when honor is insulted, an affronted actor will strive to punish the offender. Absent an apology, the pursuit of a satisfactory punishment leads the affronted belligerent to ignore unfavorable battlefield information, hold logically irreconcilable beliefs, process information in emotional terms, and obsess over status. We predict that wars of prevention and territorial occupation are most likely to elicit honor considerations. We test our argument against an obscure episode in the war where Germany and the United States made peace overtures in December 1916. We demonstrate that honor concerns made Entente decision makers see German aggression as an affront to their honor that only the destruction of Germany's political regime could redress.     

The First Shot was the Last Straw: The Sinking of the T.S.S. Athenia in September 1939 and British Naval Policy in the Second World War

On 3 September 1939 the passenger liner Athenia, sailing from Liverpool to Montreal, was sunk by the German submarine U-30 with a loss of 112 lives. This action, while not intended by the German government, was in violation of Germany's commitments under the London Naval Treaty and it complicated its desire to keep hostilities confined to Poland. The British government and Admiralty, confronted with an attack on an unarmed passenger liner within nine hours of the declaration of war, and several freighters shortly thereafter, concluded that the German Navy intended to wage unrestricted submarine warfare. This article shows that as a result of the sinking of the Athenia, the government and the Admiralty implemented convoys within the first week of the war, sooner and more completely than had been intended. Naval ship building priorities were also subsequently adjusted to quickly provide escort vessels for the newly organized convoys.     

论一战前后西伯利亚大铁路在俄国对外战略中的地位

西伯利亚大铁路的修筑改变了东北亚国家的地缘关系,是列强在东北亚地区利用铁路开展竞争的滥觞。一战前,沙皇俄国利用铁路推行扩张政策;一战后,苏维埃俄国在重构东方发展环境过程中仍须倚重西伯利亚大铁路。俄国政权的更迭并没阻碍西伯利亚大铁路战略地位的延续。     

二战后中日结盟观比较研究——以中苏同盟、日美同盟为例

战后中日结盟观存在差异。从结盟功能来看,中国谋求的是生存与安全;日本谋求的是从生存、安全到对外权力的增加、对国际秩序的影响。从结盟对象来看,中国的结盟对象包括强国和相对弱势的国家;日本的结盟对象集中在强国。从同盟地位与同盟管理来看,中国强调地位及管理的平等,而日本对这方面的不平等往往持容忍的态度。从结盟基础来看,中国从以面临共同威胁而产生的共同安全利益以及意识形态划界,到淡化、放弃意识形态划界。日本则从以面临共同威胁而产生的共同安全利益以及意识形态划界,到淡化意识形态,再到一度逐渐强化意识形态划界。从结盟影响来看,中国经历了结盟利于和平到不利于和平的观念转变,日本则以结盟利于和平的观念为主。