The Arms Race to Peace
The economic and technological changes that accompanied the Industrial Revolution fundamentally altered the nature of "modern" warfare. Unprecedented advances in machinery and mass production made the development and production of new weapons an inevitable component of the preparation for conflict. As industrialization spread across the globe, so too did the proliferation of weapons manufacturing. Indeed, these years of "progress" saw the advent of the modern arms race. For decades international relations scholars have engaged in theoretical discussions about the factors that contribute to arms races. Sides have been taken on this issue and whole schools of thought have developed. Some theories contend that arms races occur in a manner consistent with a "spiral model". This philosophy contends that nations engage in vertical proliferation in response to such actions by their adversaries. Other scholars argue that the source of arms races can be found in domestic politics, tracing the motivation for weapons development to an embedded military-industrial complex or ideological stasis on the part of defense hawks (Kydd 2002). Inherent in many of these theories and beliefs is a position on the ultimate impact to thes
" (Kennedy 1984:173) Thus, the military-industrial complex theory falls prey to the same errors in logic as the spiral model, while blowback might create a correlation between arms racing and conflict, to say that this theory proves arms races to be a cause of war would necessitate erroneous reasoning. Also, such a scenario would embrace the spiral model's theory of action-reaction responses by nations, which is addressed earlier. (Glynn 1987:3) By adopting a policy of appeasement instead of containment toward the Nazi regime, the Allies sealed their fate. Opponents of deterrence point to theories that argue spiraling responses by states or blowback from the military-industrial complex prove arms races are a cause of conflict. (Kennedy 1976:174) Nations go to war as a result of these factors. strongly influence the great powers' decision to go to war. " (Hermann 1996:174)At a glance, Hermann's argument might seem logical and well grounded. Toward the end of the 19th century, England, France and Russia all engaged in a rapid buildup of naval forces. (Jervis 1976:87)In short, the downfall of the spiral model is that the actions and reactions of nations cannot be viewed in isolation. The war most commonly attributed to arms racing is World War I. [Kydd 2002]While this theory of causation between arms accumulation and war is weak on a number of issues, the clearest reason why this theory does not prove arms races cause war is that the scenario described above is not an example of an arms race. World War I was the product of a deliberate bid by the German leadership for European domination. While Germany did increase its development of naval weapons shortly after England escalated its program in 1905 and 1906, Germany started this program toward the end of the 19th century, long before any action was taken by England. Claiming that arms racing caused World War I overlooks the fact that the Balkan War of 1912 caused the arms racing between Germany and France and Russia.
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