Summary of "Offense, Defense and the Causes of War” by Stephen Van Evera

Summary of "Offense, Defense and the Causes of War”  by Stephen Van Evera

Does the offense dominance really threaten world peace? The condition of offensive advantage itself or the situation where states find themselves who have offensive advantage (whether it is true or not) makes world more dangerous and insecure place, according to this article.

  Stephen Van Evera, who proposed and developed ‘Offense-Defense theory,’ argues that there are ten effects of offense dominance and those are decisive elements of bringing about war: Opportunistic expansionism, defensive expansionism, fierce resistance to other’s expansion, attraction of moving first, increased necessity of preventive war due to widened windows of opportunity and vulnerability, faits accomplis as a diplomatic strategy, lessened negotiation and agreements, tighter secrecy between countries, overheated arms race, and vicious cycle of offense dominance.

  Under the circumstance of offensive advantage, states are apt to expand because ‘booty’ of victory is so tempting that even gentle states seriously consider changing their behavior. This causes opportunistic expansionism. On the other hand, states are vulnerable to others’ assault when offense is strong. States want to fortify themselves by conquering other states’ strategic area or obtaining mines of important raw materials such as iron. (It sounds paradoxical that defensive motivation eventually triggers offensive behavior.) This is why defensive expansionism emerges, and those expansionism leads to the resistance of other states eventually. If neighbor state inclines to expansionism, no state would obediently accept its neighbor’s aggressive behavior. As a result, risky interaction between neighbors gets self-strengthened and tends to proliferate hostility, whether intended or not. Also, the incentive to preemptive strike is a natural consequence of offense dominance when considering self-help is a main principle under international anarchy.

  When a power shift happens between states, traditional superpower feels nervous though the ranking itself has not affected yet, because the ‘window of vulnerability’ can be opened widely and this may cause newly rising power to gain more capability and to occupy the uppermost point finally. For that reason, ‘window of opportunity’ should be opened when offense has advantage, or weakened defense would be Achilles’ heel.

  Faits Accomplis (accomplished fact) tactic is appealing when offense dominates because it promises valuable rewards. Especially, Faits Accomplis are more hazardous under offensive advantage. If they become successful, relative capability might easily shift and it causes opponent states’ anxiety.

  Under the offensive advantageous circumstance, states tend to be uncooperative to each other because bargaining range is not much wide since they prefer to declare a war rather than to suffer loss. Also, states are apt to devote themselves to arms race which is related to windows of vulnerability and opportunity and false optimism. There are seven incentives to reinforce military power under the offensive advantage: (1)Cumulative nature of resource (2)Difficulty of self-defense (3)Alert attitude of nations (4)Possibility of quick victory (5)Effectiveness of offense (6)Misunderstanding from tightened secrecy (7)Fewer arms control.

  Lastly, offense dominance is enhanced by itself for three reason. First, states prefer to purchase offensive armaments since they are eager to maximize what they have now. Second, alliances present offensive inclination, and it is based on temerarious belief on allies’ participation. Third, status-quo state is not effective to keep safe its allies from invasion because an invader state can prevail defenders before military aid reaches.

  Then what decides offense-defense dominance in real world? The article suggests four kinds of factors: military, geographic, domestic social and political, and diplomatic factors. (Author asserts it is a far widened concept in comparison to existing ideas since they had focused on military technology only.)

  Military offense-defense dominance is determined by three elements: military technology, doctrine and force postured and deployments. In terms of technology, fortification was the most important and effective way to gain military capability in the Middle Age. Also, there was cavalry-favoring technology in that period. This caused dominance of defense. But after iron became cheaper and mass production emerged, offense got power since fortification skills were beaten by mass armies. Moreover, French mass armies were strengthened with mobility. After Napoleon’s downfall, european states armed with conservative idea abandoned since those governments were not enough popular to make their troops purely loyal. But democracy’s emergence and development enabled re-appearance of mass armies in mid-nineteenth century. The combined effects of lethal small arms, barbed wire, entrenchments, and railroads favored the defense dominance during the World War I, but offense soon overrode those defensive materials due to motorized armor and offensive doctrine. Since the thermonuclear weapons’ invention, world has dominated by power of defense. Additionally, history shows that technology and doctrine usually correlate with each other. Sometimes one shapes the other and sometimes it happens conversely. As another element, military posture and force deployments matter. Soviet and Germany’s case during 1939-41, U.S. and Japan’s case in 1941, and Egypt and Israel’s case before 1967 war are supporting the factors.

  States having natural barriers (e.g. ocean, lake, wide river, grand mountain, dense jungle, or vast desert), especially with borders, do not much worry about being attacked or conquered. United Kingdom, France, Italy and United States are relatively secure states thanks to geographical advantage. On the other hand, Eastern Europe, Middle East including Israel, and Germany (because of its eastern frontier) are traditionally vulnerable to neighbors’ attack due to geographical simplicity.

  Domestic social and political factors show different aspect and the change is connected with technological advance in early nineteenth century. Traditionally, popular regime has advantage in mobilizing army and guerilla for defending invaders. On the contrary, when domestic politics is unstable and government lacks popularity, discontent citizens can cooperate with intruders from foreign states instead of helping existing leadership. Therefore, popular regime was more likely to become advantageous in offensive strategy than unpopular one. However, technology made difference 1800s and cheaper and massively producted weapons favored Guerilla. This caused popular regimes to pursue defensive strategy to march in step with the change.

  Diplomatic factors have three kinds of tactic: collective security systems, defensive alliances, and balancing behavior by neutral states. These are effective tools to hamper states’ aggressive movement. Collective security systems and defensive alliances are very similar in its purpose and function. They differ in where their enemy exists – potentially in the group or outside the alliance. Neutral states’ balancing behavior has good instances of Britain and United States. Those states did not always conduct activism, but when they acted as “responsible hegemons,” at least, offense-defense balance got stabilized.

  Before designing actual tests, author establishes prime predictions and explanatory predictions. According to author’s another literature, “prime predictions are inferred from its prime hypothesis,” and prime hypothesis “frames a theory’s claim that its independent phenomenon causes its dependent phenomenon.” Explanatory predictions are also inferred from its explanatory hypothesis and “explanatory hypothesis explain how the theory’s independent phenomenon causes its dependent phenomenon.” Testing both predictions “tells us if explanatory hypotheses operate and thereby shed light on both whether and how the hypothesis operates.”

  For the prime predictions, three arguments are suggested: (1)War will be more common in periods when conquest is easy or is believed easy, and vice versa. (2)States that have or believe they have large offensive opportunities or defensive vulnerabilities will start and fight more wars than others. (3)A state will initiate and fight more wars in periods when it has, or thinks that it has, larger offensive opportunities and defensive capabilities. For the explanatory predictions, two predictions are inferred: (1)Ten phenomena above will be more common in eras of real or perceived offense dominance (2)States that have or believe they large offensive opportunities or defensive vulnerabilities will more potently carry out polices which involve those ten phenomena.

  The article demonstrates its hypothesis with three historical cases and those descriptions contain the passage of time in limited terrain. Accordingly, independent variables should be the factors which have variations with the change of era, unlike geographic factors. First test is about Europe from 1789 to 1990s.

  European case is the most supportive example of offense-defense theory since it shows dynamic shift from defense to offense or vice versa and theory’s expectation almost exactly matches. It is classified into seven periods, and military factors and diplomatic factors were influential in dominance change.

	Dominance	Main Factors	Major Events
1792-1815	offense	Mass army, exaggerated belief in offense, Napoleon	War of 1792 (French revolutionary mainly)
1815-1856	defense	Abandoning mass army, Concert of Europe	Crimean War (1853-56, during dominance shift)
1856-1871	offense	Mass army, isolationist Britain, disappearance of Russia’s balancing	Crimean War, War in 1859, 1864, 1866, 1870
1871-1890	defense	Bismarck’s diplomacy, Britain’s activism	-
1890-1919	(reality: defense) perceived: offense	offensive military doctrine, super power’s miscalculation	World War I
1919-1945	offense	Isolationist U.S., Nazi Germany	World War I and II
1945-1990s	defense	U.S as a balancer, nuclear revolution	Cold War

  This table clearly shows offensive advantage was directly connected to major war. To sum up, this test confirms prime prediction 1 and 2, and both explanatory predictions. It proves that perceived concept of dominance matters rather the dominance itself. Also, there were always warfare in european continent, but geographically disadvantageous states (e.g. Prussia/Germany) are particularly exposed to fear of invasion. That can be the reason why specific countries were usually responsible to war’s outbreak. The case also depicts that periods of perceived offense dominance had expansionist states. French, Prussian, Wilhelmine Germany, Russian, Nazis’ expansionism (both opportunistic and defensive) appeared in offense dominant era. For the other thing, opportunistic and defensive expansionism were notable among those states that are well aware of defensive vulnerability and offensive opportunity. (e.g. Prussia/Germany, revolutionary France)

  In the ancient China’s case, long-term shift is observed during about five hundred years and the change was about strategic dominance’s moving from defense to offense. Offense-defense theory’s prediction that warfare must have increased in this period is correct. Approximately, before BC 550, defense dominated the China region and there were four changes which convert the atmosphere after then. Those were (1)feudalism’s decline (2)mass infantry’s growth and relatively weakened chariots (3)conscription’s emergence (4)overwhelming rise in armies’ size. It was easily found in those days that hundreds of thousands to a million men were deployed as armies in each state. Great augmentation in the number of soldiers neutralized forts’ safeguard and it was combined with the offensive arms’ advance. Therefore, fortification came to vulnerable to conquest. Moreover, the decline of feudalism intensified troop loyalty to regime since it weakened social class discrimination, which caused long-distance offensive strategy to become possible.

  During the Spring and Autumn period(BC 722-453), the era where defensive advantage existed, warfare was considerably limited and dignity was honored though there was not a central government or an empire between states. However, following Warring States period (BC 453-221), the era where offense took advantage, a frequency of battle markedly increased, and warfare came to be a top priority. In terms of diplomacy, states had no willing to be honest. Those two periods definitely prove that the alteration toward offense dominance caused a chaotic and brutal international affairs.

  In comparison to other great powers, United States had no reason to be offensive thanks to its “God-favored” geography, no super power neighbor, and economic abundance. Although America reveals its offensive behavior for some reasons, it is quite different from european imperialistic idea and less aggressive. Also, american diplomacy has been more communicative than European powers, so other countries has no room for misunderstanding this country’s intention. Of course, there were shift in tactical dominance between offense and defense over time. However, those are not distinct phase of this case. Instead, U.S. played the role of balancer in four corners of the globe (not only in european continent) after Britain’s stepping down.

  The author boldly admits that those three tests are not perfectly supporting his theory. However he is full of confidence that there is no better theory yet to explain the cases above. The measures suggested to make the world more peaceful place are: to adopt defensive military attitude, to seek arms control agreements to limit offensive weapons, and to keep up defensive alliance. All these ideas are designed for extinction of offense advantage.

  In the conclusion part, Van Evera explains – in pride, definitely – that why offense-defense theory can receive favorable evaluation and asserts again that historical fact actually support his idea.