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  • Essay / The cause of the Great War: World War I - 2053

    The First World War was a conflict that cost more than 10 million lives, ravaged all of Europe, and gave rise to modern warfare, such that we know it today. The Great War has been scrutinized and examined through many complex theories in order to understand how such a conflict escalated into one of the most epic wars in history. This essay, like many previous works, seeks to examine World War I and determine its causes through two distinct levels of analysis, individual and systemic. The individual level of analysis locates the cause of conflicts among individual leaders or decision-makers in a particular country, focusing on the characteristics of human decision-making. The systemic level of analysis explains the causality of a conflict at a systemic level that includes all states, taking into account the distribution of power and the interaction of states in the international system. I seek to examine World War I from each level of analysis. use a theory to explain the decision-making of actors. I argue that at the individual level of analysis, World War I was caused primarily by psychological explanations. Decision-making actors in each state made errors in processing information and events, which forced leaders to develop biases and beliefs that leaned toward war. Whereas, at the systemic level of analysis, the First World War was caused by the cult of the offensive. Each state believed that its offensive advantages were so great that a defending force would have no hope of repelling an attack, opting only for offensive military strategies. Through this examination, I hope to explain why World War I escalated into the conflict it became and potentially how it could have been avoided. Finally, I also seek to analyze this conflict from a modern perspective. Answer...... middle of paper ...... again/gaining land/properties. The system only needed a small spark to light the fuse. That spark was the Balkan region. The assignment of Sarajevo to the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was all that was needed to plunge the European nations into war. This assassination caused powerful nations to draw lines in the sand and provide unwavering support to their allies in times of conflict. German support for Austria-Hungary provides a good example of offensive-minded states using the situation to spark a clash between their enemies. The evidence that no nation made significant attempts to resolve the problem diplomatically and that the military was mobilizing before war was even declared proves that an offensive strategy was being implemented. The period before the July Crisis is an example of how states were undoubtedly preparing for war..