The Morale Maze: the German Army in Late 1918

The state of the German Army’s morale in 1918 is central to our understanding not only of the outcome of World War I, but also of the German Revolution and, indeed, through the pernicious ‘stab-in-the-back-myth’, on Weimar politics and the rise of the Nazis, too. This article presents new evidence from the German archives, blended with statistical analysis, to show that the morale of some units held up better than previously thought almost to the end, and thus to suggest three things. First, it proposes that some historians have placed too much reliance on English-language sources alone, such as British Army intelligence reports, which have various flaws as evidence. Second, it argues that, while historians have increasingly moved away from generalisations about German morale, this process has further to run. Third, it suggests that no single tipping point can be identified, and that morale alone does not provide a sufficient explanation for battlefield defeat. Indeed, much of the data can only be explained if the tactical realities of the war in late 1918 are clearly understood.     

In Search of the ‘X’ Factor: Morale and the Study of Strategy

A functional conceptualisation of morale is proposed, which focuses its meaning on motivation and the willingness to act rather than mood and group dynamics. Morale, it is argued, emerges from the subtle interrelationships of the many factors known to affect military means. It can be assessed both qualitatively and quantitatively, allowing the interaction between morale and policy to be explored in a manner that facilitates insight into the strategic process. A case study from the North African campaign of World War II is presented to explore in detail the relationship between morale and the art of war – strategy.     

The ‘War on Terrorism’: What Does it Mean to Win?

Abstract

The war on al-Qaeda and its affiliates appears to be endless but every war must end. Winding down the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq has been difficult, but both were embedded in what was then called the ‘war on terrorism.’ What does ‘success’ in that war mean? With the death of bin Laden and the increase in drone operations, how far is the US from achieving it? Can this war end? The article analyzes the ongoing US response to the 9/11 attacks in historical context, revealing four patterns common to all prolonged wars: means become ends, tactics become strategy, boundaries are blurred, and the search for a perfect peace replaces reality. It concludes by laying out an effective strategy for ending the war.     

The impact of strategy and measurement on models of French military expenditure

The intention of this paper is to analyse why people go to war, despite the, at first sight, divergence between benefits and costs. This paper provides a comparison of the willingness to go to war in different OECD countries using World Values Survey data. The empirical findings in the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and West Germany, using the willingness to fight as a dependent variable, indicate that such factors as pride, trust, and political ideology significantly influence individuals' willingness to go to war.     

CONTRIBUTORS

Conventional wisdom states that the stability-instability paradox does not explain the effect of nuclear proliferation on the conflict propensity of South Asia, and that nuclear weapons have had a different and more dangerous impact in South Asia than Cold War Europe. I argue that the paradox explains nuclear South Asia; that the similarities between nuclear South Asia and Cold War Europe are strong; and that conventional instability does not cause revisionist challenges in the long run. I develop and probe a psychological causal mechanism that explains the impact of nuclear weapons on Cold War Europe and South Asia. Following the ten-month mobilized crisis in 2002, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may have adopted a more moderate foreign policy toward India after experiencing fear of imminent nuclear war, as Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev did forty years earlier. I argue that the stability-instability paradox explains Cold War Europe and nuclear South Asia and will, conditional on Iranian and North Korean revisionism, predict the impact of nuclear weapon development on these states' conflict propensities.     

WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

Nuclear optimists and pessimists disagree on whether the odds of nuclear war are low or high. This viewpoint assesses the odds of nuclear war over the past sixty-six years, exploring three pathways to nuclear war: an international crisis leading directly to nuclear war, an accident or misperception leading to nuclear escalation or nuclear retaliation against an imaginary attack, and a general conventional war leading to nuclear war. The assessment is based on the application of Bayes's theorem and other statistical reasoning and finds that the expected probability of nuclear war during this historical period was greater than 50 percent. This level of risk is unacceptably high. It is therefore urgent that effective measures be taken to substantially reduce the risk of nuclear war.     

HOW WAS THE COLD WAR WON?

Reagan's Secret War: The Untold Story of His Fight to Save the World from Nuclear Disaster, by Martin Anderson and Annelise Anderson. Crown Publishers, 2009. 464 pages, $32.50.

The Rebellion of Ronald Reagan: A History of the End of the Cold War, by James Mann. Viking, 2009. 410 pages, $27.95.     

The British occupation of Mesopotamia, 1914–1922

During World War I the military campaign in Mesopotamia placed enormous demands on local man- and animal power to provide the logistical resources vital to its conduct. This required the British civil and military authorities to construct a wartime state apparatus that filled the administrative vacuum left by the retreating Ottomans and made possible its downward penetration and mobilisation of local resources for the war effort. This article examines the interaction of politics and logistics in Mesopotamia and views the enhanced wartime levels of resource extraction in light of the British attempts to codify their presence in the country after 1918 and the nationalist backlash that resulted.