The First World War and the International Power System Paul M. Kennedy International Security, Vol. 9, No. 1. (Summer, 1984), pp. 7-40. Stable URL hitp:/flinks.jstor-org/sicisici=0 162-2889% 28198422%299%3A 1% 3C7%3ATFWWAT%3E2,0.CO%3B2-T International Security is currently published by The MIT Press Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupslwww.jstor.orgijourals'mitpress.html ch copy of any part of'a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission, ISTOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @ jstor.org. hupulwww jstor.org/ Wed Jun 28 03:29:35 2006The First World War | ?#!M. Kennedy and the Intemational Power System Tris essay examines the First World War in the context of what has been called “the shifting balance of world forces.” It concerns itself with the grand strategy of the powers in the largest sense of that term, that is, the position occupied by each of the major combatants within the global order and the extent to which that position affected, and was affected by, the war. In consequence, it will have little to say upon the day-by-day diplomacy of the pre-1914 era, the domestic-political background to the war, public attitudes towards interstate conflict, and the detailed operational plans of the various states.? By contrast, the geopolitical and economic alterations of the age will be given considerable attention, since it will be argued that they not only illustrate the peculiar linkages in the power constellation by 1914, but also help to explain the general military equilibrium, and the ultimate outcome, of the prolonged conflict itself. That the outbreak of war was preceded by an arms race of staggering proportions is well known. As the following statistics show, every power was devoting far greater funds to military expenditures by 1914 than had been the case two or three decades earlier. While this was true even of more distant states like the U.S. (following the Spanish-American War) and Japan (following the Russo-Japanese War), the center of the arms race was clearly in Europe. Between 1900 and 1914, military expenditures more than doubled aul M, Kennedy is the J. Richardson Dilworth Proesor of History at Yale Univesity 1. Charles L. Mowat, ed, The New Cambridge Modern History, Vol. 12, The Shifting Balance of World Forces, 1886-1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) For other relevant ‘works, see Goofirey Barraclough, An Intraduction 19 Contemporary History (Harmondsworth, “Middlesex: Penguin, 1967), chapters 3 and 4; A.W. DePorte, Europe beruven the Superpowers: The Enduring Balance (New Hlaven: Yale University Press, 1979); Paul Kennedy, “Mahan versus Mackinder,”in idem, Sttegy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945 (London and Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1889), 2. On these issues one can consul, intr alia, Luigi Albertini, The Origins ofthe War of 1914, fran. and ed. Isabella M. Massey, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1952-87; reprint cd., Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press, 1980); AJ-P. Taylor, The Sougele for Mastery ix Europe, 1848-1918 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 195); Barbara W. Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (New York: Macmillan, 1966); Arno J. Mayer, The Persistence ofthe Old Regime: Europe tothe Great War (London and New York: Pantheon, 1981); L.C-F. Turner, Grigins ofthe First World War (London: Edward Arnold, 1970); Paul M. Kennedy, ed, The War Plans ofthe Great Powers, 1880-1914 (London and Bost: Allen & Unwin, 1979), international Sart, Summer 1964 (Vol 9, No.1) O2-2R5OR00I00I794 $2500 (0 o84 by Pas Kennedy.International Security | 8 in Russia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary and almost doubled in Italy, with the largest rises occurring after 1910 (see Table 1), It is interesting to note that the expansion in appropriations was not accompanied by similar increases in regular military and naval personnel: the additional funds were primarily being devoted towards improved equip- ment, new field-guns, and larger warships (all expensive items) rather than upon infantrymen per se, although the latter did increase to some extent (see Table 2). Still, this issue can be a deceptive one, since all of the continental European states had large numbers of trained reserves, which could be ‘mobilized in wartime to double or treble the size of the army. Overall national population—whether growing swiftly as in Russia and Germany, or infuri- atingly static as in France—remained a significant military factor here, as it had been in previous periods of great-power conflict (see Table 3). But it was not the most significant factor, by any means. Economic Measures of National Power ‘The problem with relying upon such simple statistical comparisons as the miilitary/naval expenditures and personnel of the Great Powers is that they ignore the vital fact that modern warfare, if lasting more than a few months, ‘would be hideously expensive and would therefore require the mobilization. of national industrial and technological resources on an unprecedented scale. Should the war between the rival alliances not be “over by Christmas” (to use the happy phrase of August 1914), its outcome would depend more and more upon the economic exploitation of the available industrial and agricultural bases of the two coalitions.® The significance of the economic factor was not ‘Table 1._ Defense Appropriations of the Powers ($ Britain France Russia Germany aly Austria-Hungary US. Japan 190157142 5 7” 64 oa 1900 2531392048878 J ee) wo 34088312 ak. 7 279 8 wee 197 ast tata 182 31496 Source: Quincy Wright, A Study of War, 2nd ed. (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 670-671 3. This phrase is chosen to allow forthe fact that Britain and France could secure additional resources from overseas (especialy their empires and the United States); and could in turn