Misunderstandings about the consequences of conflict: States have struggled to foresee the strategic consequences of a conflict, including the durability of wartime gains, the ease of restoring stability, the risk of a conflict recurring, and the long-term implications for the balance of power. Perhaps the most infamous example is World War I and the European powers' prediction in July 1914 that the conflict would be over by Christmas. Incorrect predictions about the length, intensity, or cost of conflict: Great powers have frequently underestimated the conflict's duration and the scale of military losses. Before World War I, for example, European planners misinterpreted or overlooked ample evidence that changes in technology, organization, and the conduct of war (e.g., trench warfare and chemical weapons) would make battles longer, costlier, and less decisive. Misunderstanding the effects of new technology: Strategists often overlooked or discounted evidence that a new technology had altered the conduct of war or the distribution of power. In other instances, great powers recognized that their actions might provoke another state to get involved but underestimated that state's willingness to sustain a protracted and costly war. Noteworthy examples include Adolf Hitler's underestimation of French and British commitments to Poland in 1939 and Kim Il Sung and Joseph Stalin's assumptions that the United States would not fight to defend South Korea in 1950. Incorrect predictions about the parties to a conflict and adversaries' will to fight a long war: Great powers have frequently misunderstood other states' interests and therefore failed to predict the likelihood of third-party interventions in a conflict. Some of those mistakes are described below. An examination of ten great power wars since 1815 found that, in all cases, politicians and military planners held poor assumptions and made inaccurate predictions about critical aspects of the war that would follow (Table 1). The history of great power conflict is littered with mistaken predictions. This report was finalized in January 2021, before the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This history underlines the need for defense planners to carefully examine their assumptions and to seriously consider both intended and unintended outcomes of great power conflicts.Īs the Department of Defense increasingly focuses on competition with Russia and China, RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) examined four scenarios illustrating how hypothetical wars with these countries could produce unwanted consequences for the United States - even if the United States is victorious. Still, such wars have historically been among the most consequential international events, as they lead to massive casualties and destruction and have the capacity to reshape societies and the international system.Ī review of historical great power wars shows that prewar predictions about who would fight, how long the war would last, and how the world would look afterward were often wrong. Wars between states are rare, and great power wars - conflicts that involve two or more of the most powerful states in the international system - are even less common.
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