War and Punishment
eBook - PDF

War and Punishment

The Causes of War Termination and the First World War

  1. 368 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

War and Punishment

The Causes of War Termination and the First World War

About this book

What makes wars drag on and why do they end when they do? Here H. E. Goemans brings theoretical rigor and empirical depth to a long-standing question of securities studies. He explores how various government leaders assess the cost of war in terms of domestic politics and their own postwar fates. Goemans first develops the argument that two sides will wage war until both gain sufficient knowledge of the other's strengths and weaknesses so as to agree on the probable outcome of continued war. Yet the incentives that motivate leaders to then terminate war, Goemans maintains, can vary greatly depending on the type of government they represent. The author looks at democracies, dictatorships, and mixed regimes and compares the willingness among leaders to back out of wars or risk the costs of continued warfare.


Democracies, according to Goemans, will prefer to withdraw quickly from a war they are not winning in order to appease the populace. Autocracies will do likewise so as not to be overthrown by their internal enemies. Mixed regimes, which are made up of several competing groups and which exclude a substantial proportion of the people from access to power, will likely see little risk in continuing a losing war in the hope of turning the tide. Goemans explores the conditions and the reasoning behind this "gamble for resurrection" as well as other strategies, using rational choice theory, statistical analysis, and detailed case studies of Germany, Britain, France, and Russia during World War I. In so doing, he offers a new perspective of the Great War that integrates domestic politics, international politics, and battlefield developments.

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Yes, you can access War and Punishment by Hein Goemans in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & World War I. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover Page
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Contents
  5. List of Tables and Figures
  6. Acknowledgments
  7. Chapter One: Introduction
  8. Chapter Two: A Theory of War Termination
  9. Chapter Three: Large N: The Fate of Leaders and the Duration of War
  10. Chapter Four: Germany
  11. Chapter Five: Russia
  12. Chapter Six: France
  13. Chapter Seven: Great Britain
  14. Chapter Eight: The Termination of the First World War, I: 1914–1917
  15. Chapter Nine: The Termination of the First World War, II: 1918
  16. Chapter Ten: Conclusion
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index