By Michael F. Duggan
There are necessary wars and unnecessary wars. There are crises that one side or the other wants, and there are crises that, through error or escalation, take on a will of their own.
In 1861 the Confederates forced the Sumpter Crisis: if the U.S. Army resupplied its own forts in the South, there would be war. The Imperial Japanese obviously wanted the crisis initiated by the attacks on Pearl Harbor and U.S. installations in the Philippines. In both instances, events took on a course of their own and proved catastrophic for their instigators. As long as politicians and policymakers control events and seek diplomatic resolutions, there is hope. As Churchill observes “Jaw, jaw, is always better than war, war.” But when decisions become subject to the rapidly-unfolding dictates of the crisis as seen through the lens of national security interests by the military, things may spiral, regardless of whether or not war is necessary.
The exception to this rule is when the military does not not want war.
In the summer of 1914, the politicians and their ministers went back and forth through diplomatic cables, but the two prewar European alliances—the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente—ostensibly designed to create security for the signatories, had in fact created a perfect apparatus for starting a world war. Except for Britain (whose entry in the war was based on national honour and interests like its friendship with France and protecting the Empire), every waring nation could claim self defense.1 This is because each of the continental belligerents believed that at a certain point they had to mobilize or else fall victim to the mobilization of the enemy. It was an outlook that is reminiscent of the “use or lose” rational for modern first strike nuclear strategy.
If Russia mobilized against Austria in order to protect their slavic ally, the Serbs, Germany would have to mobilize against Russia, causing France to mobilize against Germany. Germany, faced with a two-front war, had to take out France as quickly as possible in the event of a Russian mobilization so that it could turn its efforts to the east. But in order to invade France through a course of least resistance, Germany would have to cross Belgium, thus bringing in Britain. In other words, once policy shifted from the political leaders to the military leaders, events would take on a horrible momentum, a will of their own, and avoiding war would become logistically impossible. When Russia mobilized in response to the Austrian-Hungarian attack on Serbia, the game was on, and the other three major powers of Europe followed suit. Cue: Roses of Picardy.
John Kennedy is supposed to to have read Barbara Tuchman’s The Guns of August the summer before the Cuban Missile Crisis. Although academic historians even since have created a cottage industry out of underscoring Tuchman’s errors (or else ignoring her altogether as a non-academic historian), she got some of the basics right, and Kennedy took away the proper lessons. Unlike 1861 and 1941, the leaders of October 1962 were looking for a way out. Unlike 1914, Kennedy was calling the shots for his side and did not let things get to the point where the military completely controlled events. This was also the case with the Bay if Pigs invasion. As we know, war was averted in 1962, and both sides “won.” It was a textbook instance of good judgment, crisis diplomacy, and applied history.
If reports coming from both sides of the Russo-Ukrainian War are accurate, the 2023 Ukrainian offensive has not breached the foremost Russian defensive lines. Ukraine has taken staggering losses, first in the Battle of Bakhmut and then in the offensive launched in early June. The Russians are deeply dug in and likely have hundreds of thousands of reserves in eastern Ukraine and adjacent areas in western Russia. If this is true, then it seems possible that Russia will launch an offensive of its own in the near future.
If this happens, and it then appears that Russian is winning the war, the question becomes: what NATO will do? From what one infers, the true believers on the American side who may be in favor of expanding the war are politicians and policy people. Although I can’t prove it, my sense is that the Pentagon does not want a direct confrontation between NATO (i.e. the United States) and Russia. Unlike some of the military men of 1914 and 1962, they do not want to initiate a sequence that cannot be undone short of a self-destructive, unnecessary war. Like Kennedy, they may realize that when events are locked into a military course of action, they may take on a chaotic will of their own that is beyond human control. The question is whether or not the civilian leadership will heed their warnings.
Note
1. See Hew Strachan, The First World War, 34. See also Michael Howard, The First World War, 33-34.