The Strategic Tensions of the July Crisis

• In Event: New Analytic Perspectives on the First World War

Abstract

Accounts of the First World War struggle to explain why leaders were keen to enter into the conflict. Mutual optimism indeed does not appear to stand as a rationalist explanation for war. If one country is optimistic, then its enemy should temper its own optimism; both countries cannot simultaneously believe that they will prevail. This paper presents a formal model to resolve these tensions. Leaders care about how they fight a war. A country's aggressiveness bolsters its enemy's claim that it is a victim in the conflict, making its own aggressiveness more attractive. A country's aggressiveness may also reinforce the belief that the war will be short, and a costly stalemate can be avoided. Thus, the belligerents' optimism is not only jointly possible, it is mutually reinforcing. This perspective captures key dimensions of the July Crisis and sheds new light on the causes of the war.

Author

• Alexandre Debs, Yale University