Description
Transmitting an understanding of warfare from World War I to the present, WHY NATIONS GO TO WAR, a unique book and a product of reflection by author, John G. Stoessinger, is built around ten case studies, culminating in the new wars that ushered in the twenty-first century: Iraq, Afghanistan, and the wars between Arabs and Israelis in Gaza and in Lebanon. The distinguishing feature of the book remains the author's emphasis on the pivotal role of the personalities of leaders who take their nations, or their following, across the threshold into war.
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Dissatisfied with mechanistic explanations for the outbreak of wars, Stoessinger (a member of the Council on Foreign Relations) decided to seek the human factor by focusing on the actual moment when leaders make the irrevocable decision to launch the attack. His study looks at the beginnings of World War I, Hitler's attack on Russia, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Balkan wars of the 1990s, four India-Pakistan conflicts from independence to 1998, Israeli-Arab wars from 1948 onwards, Saddam Hussein's wars against Iran and Kuwait, and George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. Not surprisingly, given his choice of focus, he concludes that the initiation of wars depends heavily the personality of individual leaders. He also argues that wars almost invariably stem from the misperceptions of those that initiate them and that the initiators of wars typically lose. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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