The origin of Major War (Essay Sample)

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The origin of Major War
Hypothetically determined and historically rich, this particular book creates realist thinking about the cause of great-power wars. Dale C. Copeland seeks to put forth a theory the key causes of war. In his definition, a major war is the one involving powerful powers of the world that develops to become a war or rival elimination. The book ‘The origin of Major War’ commences by presenting the contemporary theories on why wars occurs. These theories include; hegemonic stability, classical realism and neorealism. He goes further to discuss their failures and weaknesses as predictive major war methods. Copeland argues that these types of wars can be prevented by initiating actions that favor all the conflicting parties. He asserts that a major war is extraordinarily risky but a central state may witness militarized conflict as a strategic technique for self-preservation.
One of the most significant vital questions to the existence of humankind is what leads nations to war and system threatening war. Historically, much military concentrates on when, who, and where of war (Copeland 11). In this fascinating book, ‘The origin of Major War’ Dale C. Copeland focuses and brings the attention to consider on why state governments arrive at decisions that result to, intensify or sustain conflicts between parties.
Copeland presents a comprehensive historical description of various twentieth-century circumstances such as World War I, World War II and the Cold War (Copeland 13). The author also instigates the factors that surpass individual personalities, geography, historical perspective and government styles to point out remarkable uniformity across several key wars that are regarded dissimilar.
The outcome is a series a sequence of difficulties hampering the established interpretive provocative and positions of new researches about the root causes of conflicts. Conventional neorealists and realists argue that the dominant power is the prime factor stimulating war (Copeland 21). On the other hand, Hegemonic constancy realists advocate that the war is mainly initiated by rising states.
Copeland provides a concrete platform that explains and describes predictive capacity and power. Copeland not only scrutinizes power resources but also the changing power differences among nations (Copeland 29). In his book, the author more precisely specifies the situations under which a nation denies leads to any conflicts, illustrating pragmatic support from the vital cases of the twentieth-century and significant wars traversing from the ancient Greece ton the Napoleonic wars.
In the first chapter, Copeland notes that the three most known realist description for key wars among great powers are structural neorealism, classical realism and hegemonic stability theory. In essence, classical realism claims that principal conflicts are bound to occur when one state is greater, and such wars are unlikely when great powers are reasonably equal (Copeland 31). It is relatively evident that the balance of power maintains the peace by persuading likely antagonists that wars are expensive and results to low chances of prosperity.
The second approach, neorealism concentrates on two main enduring structural characteristics of the international systems, polarity and anarchy. Anarchy is the inability of the dominant powers to protect the great powers which results to repetitive the series of conflicts among the international politics. Copeland points that the strength of neorealism is its seclusion of the structural impacts of polarity and anarchy (Copeland 25). This abandons readers with an extremely awful perspective of the international relations despite the fact that states pursue security.
This chapter further illustrates that several neorealists have sought to incorporate the classical realist that power inequalities increase the potential of major wars. Copeland points out that the third realist view on a major war is intensive of hegemonic stability theory (Copeland 27). According Robert Gilpin, Copeland illustrates that critically analyzing classical realism, it is worth stating that hegemonic platform with a single vibrant state will be stable owing to the personal interest in the process of maintaining the political, military power. According to Copeland, the strength of the hegemonic system depends on its dynamic nature. Therefore, this theory offers a more detailed analysis of the effects of power shifting on great power performance than is offered in either neorealism or classical realism.
In this perspective, it was not because of Germany's rise that stimulated World War I, but its distress of falling behind Russia that was relatively more powerful. Copeland's more challenging argument those same strategic fears resulted to the United States but not Soviet Union to start Cold War (Copeland 28). To accommodate the facts in the book, hegemonic stability theorists modify the model; they debate that as much as equality between individual great powers may not be directly associated with key war, comparative justice between the parties hinders it. Copeland in his book notes that Germany during the World War I and II was more superior to other partners.
In chapter two, Copeland poses a simple question about why leaders knowingly implement stern policies that could result to involuntary major war through cold wars and crises. The book further gives concrete explanations as to why actors opt for stronger policies together with soft-line or hard-line spectrum, despite the fact that the systems increase the chances for a major war (Copeland 35). The section also provides a vibrant realist model to answer several questions on foreign policy choices.
As chapter 2 discusses, the realist camp are divided with some emphasizing the security dilemma as well as the risks of frustrating strengthening by overlay hostile deeds and others focusing on the significance of maintaining the power balance and avoiding decline (Copeland 38). The sense in chapter 2 allows the reader to foresee when declining states will move to harder-line activities that risk an involuntary slide into a major war.
The fundamental argument in the chapter is straightforward. Essentially, if a state is facing conflicts or decline, preventive war is not inevitably the most rational technique to ensure security. If, for example, the state can avert or regulate decline by less severe alternatives like the initiation of a crisis or firm deterrence, these alternatives will be preferred (Copeland 40). As a matter of fact, Copeland's book makes the reader understand about the factors that shape the trade-offs to determine conditions in which the actors in decline will implement conciliation, move to more stimulating policies such as crisis initiation, containment or merely opt for the ultimate option; preventive major war.
The chapter's argument feasibly poses the toughest challenge for hegemonic stability theory. The book acknowledges that the growing concern of hegemonic stability model has minimal interests in the security predicament (Copeland 37). Copeland advocates that the rising states initiates war not because of security fears but the urge to clutch the rewards and status denied by the established systems. Chapter two offers the core models and policies that is vulnerable to the extent of stimulating conflicts among different states.
The outbreak of WWI and the July crisis is clearly depicted in chapter 4. The WWI with complete German preventive war mentality relatively fits Copeland's theory. The author acknowledges in this chapter that the cause that initiated WWI was the stern policies that favored other states and surpassed other states.
Chapter eight gives a brief examination of seven other significant cases of the major war. As put forth by Copeland, besides facing constrains, the objective is not to involve conventional historical argument or to provide conclusive evidence for or against a particular case. Rather...