Ratcheting toward War? 1914 and 2025
One hundred eleven years ago this summer, the European great powers made the fateful decisions that brought about the first general war on the continent since 1815. For the first couple of weeks after the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg throne in remote Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, they hardly seemed aware of how dangerous a concatenation of events was unfolding. Once they did, they could not or chose not to extricate themselves. The reasons for the fatal one-way descent repay analysis in light of current great-power strutting.
Great Britain joined France and Russia (despite their many decades of rivalry) as Germany and Austria-Hungary unleashed a risky punitive action against Serbia for what they deemed their vital national interests. With the Ottoman Empire's choice to join the conflict in December, Japan's pressure on China, Italy's entry in May 1915, and the United States' entrance in April 1917, and the fighting in African colonies, the war encompassed much of the globe.
Christopher Clark's engaging narrative of 2012 used the term "The Sleepwalkers" -- a fateful somnambulism -- to describe the European descent into war. And the term does convey the sense of an almost drugged inability to halt the process of escalation. Indeed, some of the powers' responses seem heedless of possible or probable consequences: the Serbian minister of the Interior winked at the plot to assassinate the heir to the Habsburg throne; the Austrians demanded that the Serbs allow them to supervise the investigation into the plot as a pretext for invasion. Russia ordered mobilization along to dissuade Austria-Hungary from any attack on Serbia. Berlin gave virtually unconditional support to Austria, even to the point of demanding that the French evacuate their frontier fortresses to demonstrate that they would not support any Russian intervention. Each government came to believe that its status as a viable international actor was at stake.
But sleepwalking, I think, does not quite capture the process of escalation although it is most apt perhaps in describing the Austro-Hungarian confidence that it might clean up its Balkan problems while leaving the larger European consequences to the Germans. It had been clear for years that Europe was locked into rival alliances, which if intended for effective deterrence, could precisely therefore entail dangerous wagers. Each of the large states had hawkish and dovish parties contending for influence at home. Such a division is characteristic even when decision making was the prerogative of non-elected elites. We think in terms of states as the molecules of an international system, but the state is a resultant of forces; its policies are up for grabs. Foreign policy is a stake in the struggle at home even as it shapes that domestic rivalry. Bismarck had said that unified Germany was a satiated power after unifying Germany in 1871, but by annexing Alsace-Lorraine he had provided a continuing source of grievance for French rightwing nationalists. France certainly did not march into Germany in 1914 and it comes off better in terms of its crisis behavior, but since the mid-1890s Paris felt impelled to firm up its alliance with Russia and its less formal but significant military commitments with Britain.
I am reminded of these complex events that can tend toward catastrophic outcomes precisely by events unfolding now. Putin, Xi Jinping, and the status-hungry leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un, have just held a summit in Beijing to demonstrate that their axis can stand up to the United States and Western allies. Israel has been supported since October 7, 2023, in the same unconditional way as Austria was by Germany in 1914, and the Israeli expansionists now in power are locked into a war they seem unwilling to terminate. Prime Minister Netanyahu has seemingly staked his political survival upon enlarging the hostilities to the brink of a general Middle Eastern war along with the willful extermination of Palestinian lives and extinction of any plausible Palestinian community in Gaza. Alliances are important but guarantor powers should learn that solidarity need not require blank checks for every action its partner may embark upon. The American administration seems to be energized by talking war. President Trump, originally cautious about endorsing aggressive policies (outside the tariff arena) has bombed a boat allegedly carrying drugs as if were a confirmed military target in wartime and deploys a masked paramilitary force as well as reservists to inflame confrontation at home. He has renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War, claiming that we have been unable to fight for victory under the former designation. Secretary Hegseth seems to delight in girding his loins as generalissimo. He and President Trump exhibit a need for validation and recognition as tough guys offering others' blood and tears without their own sweat or toil.
Perhaps we can think more soberly through the lessons of these dangerous moments. Once again in such a climate of systemic confrontation, smaller countries become the trigger points for general conflict. Some merit the intervention of their larger allies if they remain democratic and do not seek to exploit their status for dreams of aggrandizement. Territorial compromises imposed by great powers (viz. Munich) can be dishonorable, but not always. Pace General MacArthur, there are substitutes for victory. Statesmen are not usually sleepwalking; but they can be heedless. And no matter how prudent or how resolute or how wise they are, the system of multiple sovereign states imposes costly conditions, compromise, and change. Perhaps the unsatisfying maxim for all of us should be, above all do less harm.
9/4/2025