Lessons of World War I

Abstract

World War I is a foundational or critical case for theories of international relations that address the causes of war. They include balance of power , deterrence, power transition theory, and rationalist models of decision making. Recent historical work on the underlying and immediate causes of World War I raises serious problems for all these approaches. Among other things, they highlight the importance of context, how it is understood by leaders, their motives and assumptions, and their tendency to exaggerate the constraints acting on them, the freedom of other actors, and their ability to predict events and control risks.

Richard Ned Lebow, ‘What can international relations theory learn from the origins of World War I?’, International Relations, 2014, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 387-410. Copyright © 2014 SAGE Publications. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. The online version of this article can be found at: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0047117814556157.