This article combines the work of two unpublished papers. The theoretical sections are derived from Christensen's “Chained Gangs and Passed Bucks: Waltz and Crisis Management Before the Two World Wars,“ Columbia University, December 1987. The case study material is based on Snyder's “Offense, Defense and Deterrence in the Twentieth Century,” a paper presented at the Conference on the Strategic Defense Initiative, University of Michigan, November 1986. We are grateful to Charles Glaser, Harold Jacobson, Robert Jervis, Stephen Krasner, Helen Milner, David Reppy, Cynthia Roberts, Randall Schweller, Stephen Van Evera, Stephen Walt, Deborah Yarsike, William Zimmerman, and an anonymous reviewer for comments on various earlier drafts. We also thank the Social Science Research Council and the MacArthur Foundation for Christensen's financial support and the Program in International Peace and Security Studies at the University of Michigan for sponsoring Snyder's original paper.

1. Waltz, Kenneth, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1979)Google Scholar.

2. We feel no need to take a position on the epistemological debates surrounding Waltz's theory, spurred in particular by John Ruggie and Robert Cox. We are satisfied to accept Waltz's scheme as what Cox terms a “problem-solving theory.” For current purposes, we hope to improve its problem-solving utility rather than to address its deeper epistemological adequacy. See Keohane, Robert, ed., Neorealism and Its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), especially pp. 208 and 214Google Scholar. See also Dessler, David, “What's at Stake in the Agent-Structure Debate?” International Organization 43 (Summer 1989), pp. 441–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dryzek, John S., Clark, Margaret L., and McKenzie, Garry, “Subject and System in International Interaction,” International Organization 43 (Summer 1989), pp. 475–504CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3. See, for example, Walt, Stephen, The Origins of Alliance (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1987)Google Scholar; and Posen, Barry, The Sources of Military Doctrine (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984)Google Scholar. By “theory of foreign policy” we mean a theory whose dependent variable is the behavior of individual states rather than the properties of systems of states. It does not refer to a theory that explains all aspects of a state's foreign policy.

4. Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, pp. 67 and 165–69Google Scholar.

5. See Jervis, Robert, “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” World Politics 30 (01 1978), pp. 167–214CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van Everal, Stephen, “Causes of War,“ Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1984Google Scholar; Van Evera, Stephen, “The Cult of the Offensive and the Origins of the First World War,” in Miller, Stephen E., ed., Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 58–107Google Scholar; Van Evera, Stephen, “Offense, Defense, and Strategy: When Is Offense Best?” paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, 1987Google Scholar. For a work that preceded the publication of Waltz's and Jervis's theories but made many similar points, see Quester, George, Offense and Defense in the International System (New York: Wiley, 1977)Google Scholar, especially chap. 10 on alliance behavior in World War I.

6. In addition to the above-mentioned works by Van Evera, see Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine; and Snyder, Jack, “Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984,” in Miller, , Military Strategy, pp. 139–40Google Scholar. Levy points out that difficulties in measuring offensive and defensive advantage make such judgments problematic for social scientists as well as elusive for policymakers. See Levy, Jack S., “The Offensive/Defensive Balance of Military Technology,” International Studies Quarterly 28 (06 1984), pp. 219–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7. By “determinate predictions” we mean that if all other factors (such as checkerboard geography) are held constant, then knowing the polarity of the system and the perceived offensedefense balance will theoretically suffice to predict the alliance behavior of states. Of course, in the real world, other factors having some effect on alliance behavior may not be held constant, making our predictions probabilistic rather than strictly “determinate.”

8. For related arguments that use the concepts of entrapment and abandonment, see Snyder, Glenn, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics,” World Politics 36 (07 1984), pp. 461–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, pp. 167–70Google Scholar.

10. Ibid., p. 167.

11. Ibid., p. 165.

12. Posen, , Sources of Military Doctrine, pp. 232–33Google Scholar.

13. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, chaps. 6–9.

14. Ibid., pp. 169 and 171–72.

15. Ibid., chap. 9. This certainly is the view of Waltz's students. See Walt, Stephen, “The Case for Finite Containment: Analyzing U.S. Grand Strategy,” International Security 14 (Summer 1989), pp. 5–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stephen Van Evera, ”American Strategic Interests: Why Europe Matters; Why the Third World Doesn't” (forthcoming).

16. Posen, , Sources of Military Doctrine, p. 232Google Scholar. We are grateful to Randall Schweller forhelpful comments on this point.

17. This is at least implicit in Waltz's, arguments about interdependence in his Theory of International Politics, pp. 143–46Google Scholar, juxtaposed to his arguments about the relative invulnerabilityof the bipolar superpowers, p. 172. Note also Waltz's remarks about firms on p. 135: “Morethan any other factor, relative size determines the survival of firms. Firms that are large incomparison to most others in their field find many ways of taking care of themselves—of protecting themselves against other large firms.”

18. For related discussions, see Posen, , Sources of Military Doctrine, p. 232Google Scholar; Van Evera, , “The Cult of the Offensive,” pp. 96–101Google Scholar; Van Evera, , “Why Cooperation Failed in 1914,” in Oye, Kenneth, ed., Cooperation Under Anarchy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), especially pp. 83–84Google Scholar; and Walt, , Origins of Alliance, especially pp. 24–25, fn 31, and pp.32 and 165–67Google Scholar.

19. For the theory underlying this hypothesis, see Jervis, Robert, Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976), especially chap. 6Google Scholar.

20. See Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine; Van Evera, “Causes of War”; Snyder, “Civil-Military Relations”; and Snyder, Jack, “International Leverage on Soviet Domestic Change,” World Politics 41 (10 1989), pp. 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On the cult of the defensive, see Mearsheimer, John, Liddell Hart and the Weight of History (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 107, 111–12, and 128Google Scholar; and Van Evera, “Offense, Defense, and Strategy.”

21. Waltz, , Theory of International Politics, p. 172Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., pp. 165–67.

23. For a detailed description of Czechoslovakia's crucial role in the European balance, see Murray, Williamson, The Change in the European Balance of Power, 1938–1939 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

24. Stalin's statement of 10 March 1939, cited in Ulam, Adam, Expansion and Coexistence, 2d ed. (New York: Praeger, 1974), p. 263Google Scholar.

25. This distinction works only as a rough first cut. There were deterrence failure aspects tothe 1914 diplomacy. Conversely, even firm, early deterrent threats might not have deterred Hitler's aggression. For a recent corrective along these lines, see Lynn-Jones, Sean M., “Detenteand Deterrence: Anglo–German Relations, 1911–1914,” International Security 11 (Fall 1986), pp. 121–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recent correctives, however, do not negate the main point. Even followers of Fritz Fischer accept that Germany did not want a world war but that it stumbled into it as a resultof misguided attempts to ensure German security. For a subtle discussion of these points anda commentary on Fischer's, FritzGerman Aims in the First World War (New York: Norton, 1967)Google Scholar and related works, see Levy, Jack S., “The Role of Crisis Management in the Outbreakof World War I,” paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, London, 1989, especially pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

26. This argument about World War I, set in a theoretical perspective, is made by Questerin Offense and Defense, by Jervis in “Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma,” and by Van Evera in “The Cult of the Offensive.”

27. Waltz makes this point. See Theory of International Politics, p. 125.

28. Van Evera, , “The Cult of the Offensive,” p. 97Google Scholar. We are grateful to Randall Schweller forraising this issue.

29. For a discussion of the German strategy of 1914 in an alliance context, see Sagan, Scott, “1914 Revisited: Allies, Offense, and Instability,” International Security 11 (Fall 1986), pp. 151–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also the dialogue between. Sagan, Scott and Snyder, Jack in “Correspondence: The Origins of Offense and the Consequences of Counterforce,” International Security 11 (Winter 1986), pp. 187–98Google Scholar. On German strategy more generally, see Ritter, Gerhard, The Schlieffen Plan (New York: Praeger, 1958)Google Scholar; and Snyder, Jack, Ideology of the Offensive: Military Decisionmaking and the Disasters of 1914 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), chaps. 4and 5Google Scholar.

30. Schlieffen, cited in Snyder, , Ideology of the Offensive, p. 113Google Scholar.

31. For additional analysis, see Van Evera, , “The Cult of the Offensive,” especially pp.96–101Google Scholar.

32. For a perceptive analysis, see Taylor, A. J. P., The Struggle for Mastery in Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 468 and 486Google Scholar.

33. For an analysis of the entrapment-abandonment trade-off in 1914 and in general, see Snyder, “The Security Dilemma in Alliance Politics.”

34. Keiger puts this in perspective, arguing that Poincarg was not bellicose. see Keiger, John, France and the Origins of the First World War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. For what is by far the clearest account of this misunderstood episode, see Bovykin, V. I., Iz istorii vozniknoveniia pervoi mirovoi voiny: Otnosheniia Rossii i Frantsii v 1912–1914 gg. (From the history of the origins of the First World War: Relations between Russia and Francein 1912–1914) (Moscow: Moskovskii Universitet, 1961), pp. 151–53Google Scholar. See also Helmreich, E. C., The Diplomacy of the Balkan Wars (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938), p. 216Google Scholar; Garros, Louis, “En marge de I'alliance franco–russe, 1902–1914” (A footnote to the Franco–Russian alliance, 1902–1914), Revue historique de I'armée, 06 1950, p. 33Google Scholar; Laney, Frank M., “The Military Implementation of the Franco–Russian Alliance, 1890–1914,” Ph.D.diss., University of Virginia, 1954, p. 390Google Scholar; and Williamson, Samuel, “Military Dimensions of Habsburg–Romanov Relations During the Era of the Balkan Wars,” in Kiraly, Bela and Dimitrije Djordjevic, , eds., East Central European Society and the Balkan Wars (Boulder, Colo.: Social Science Monographs, 1986), pp. 317–37Google Scholar.

36. see Laney, , “The Military Implementation of the Franco–Russian Alliance,” p. 402Google Scholar; dispatch by General Marquis de Laguiche, the French military attaché in St. Petersburg, file 7N1478 (6/19 December 1912, 27 November/4 December 1912, and 30 November/13 December 1912) at the French military archive, Chateau de Vincennes; Bestuzhev, I. V., “Bor'ba v Rossiipo voprosam vneshnei politiki nakanune pervoi mirovoi voiny, 1910–1914 gg.” (The struggle in Russia on questions of foreign policy on the eve of the First World War, 1910–1914), Istoricheskie zapiski, vol. 75, 1965, pp. 63 ff.Google Scholar; Garros, , “En marge de I'alliance franco–russe,” p. 36Google Scholar; Documents diplomatiques français (DDF), series 3, vol.V, no. 52, p. 65; and “Podgotovka pervoi mirovoi voiny” (Preparations for the First World War), Voenno-istoricheskii zhurnal, no. 3, 1939, pp. 132–33Google Scholar.

37. see Bovykin, , Iz istorii vozniknoveniia pervoi mirovoi voiny, p. 136Google Scholar; and Manikovskii, A. A., Boevoe snabzhenie russkoi armii, 1914–1918 gg. (Military supply in the Russian army, 1914–1918)(Moscow: Voennyi Redaktsionnyi Sovet, 1923)Google Scholar.

38. This is Taylor's, apt characterization of the situation in Struggle for Mastery in Europe, p. 494Google Scholar.

39. Poincaré cited by Taylor in ibid., p. 492.

40. Millerand, , cited in Ignat'ev, A. A., Piatdesiat let v stroiu (Fifty years of service), vol. 1 (Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia Literatura, 1959), p. 506Google Scholar.

41. Unpublished archival documents, cited in Bovykin, , Iz islorii vozniknoveniia pervoi mirovoi voiny, pp. 137 and 146 ff.Google Scholar

42. DDF, series 2, vol. XII, nos. 51, 55, 74, 86, 87, 90, 100, 113, and 266.

43. For example, in March 1910, Lt. Colonel Pellé, the French attaché in Berlin, wrote toGeneral Jean Jules Brun, the Minister of War, that “both on the German side and on the French, the bulk of the active forces of both countries are planned for deployment in first-line armies [near the frontiers]. The victory or defeat of these armies of the first line will very probably decide the outcome of the campaign” by the twentieth or thirtieth day after mobilization. See DDF, series 2, vol. XII, no. 453, p. 691.

44. For some pertinent comments on this matter, see Taylor, , Struggle for Mastery in Europe, p. 486Google Scholar.

45. See DDF, series 2, vol. XII, no. 399, p. 611; and Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive, chaps. 6 and 7.

46. Conversation between Colonel Mikhelsson and Lt. Colonel Pellé, reported by Pellé to General Brun in March 1910 and cited in DDF, series 2, vol. XII, no. 453, p. 695, and no. 467, p. 717.

47. see Emets, Valentin Alekseevich, “O roli russkoi armii v pervyi period mirovoi voiny, 1914–1918 gg.” (On the role of the Russian army in the first period of the World War, 1914–1918), Istoricheskie zapiski, vol. 77, 1965, p. 64Google Scholar.

48. General N. A. Kliuev, chief of staff of the Warsaw military district, cited by Emets in ibid., p. 64.

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50. Howard, Michael, The Continental Commitment (London: Temple Smith, 1972)Google Scholar.

51. This is Field Marshal William Robertson's apt characterization of the views of Runciman, Walter and McKenna, Reginald, cited by French, David in British Strategy and War Aims, 1914–1916 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), p. 247Google Scholar.

52. French, ibid., p. 3; for related evidence, see also pp. xii, 106, 118, and 245–46.

53. This is French's characterization of Lord Kitchener's views, cited in ibid., pp. 200– 201.

54. French, ibid., pp. xii, 119, and 201.

55. See Murray, Change in the European Balance of Power. On the tailoring of Germanmilitary capability for short campaigns and diplomatic intimidation, see Posen, , Sources of Military Doctrine, especially p. 200Google Scholar.

56. see Mearsheimer, John, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), chap. 4Google Scholar.

57. Khrushchev, Nikita, Khrushchev Remembers, vol. 1 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), p.134Google Scholar; see also p. 129. According to Deutscher, “the major premise of Stalin's policy and hismajor blunder” were that “he expected Britain and France to hold their ground for a long time.” See Deutscher, Isaac, Stalin (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 441Google Scholar.

58. Stalin, cited in Erickson, John, The Soviet High Command (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962), p. 513Google Scholar.

59. see Erickson, John, The Road to Stalingrad, vol. 1 (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), pp. 8 and 26Google Scholar; and Erickson, , Soviet High Command, p. 537Google Scholar.

60. see Deutscher, , Stalin, p. 437Google Scholar. This general predisposition to underestimate the feasibility of blitzkrieg may even have lasted past May 1940 and contributed to the false hope that Hitler would not attack in June 1941. Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov believed in 1940 that “Germanyis incapable of fighting on two fronts,” and even after the fall of France, he considered that Germany was too “bogged down” by the war with England to attack the Soviet Union. Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov said in June 1941 that “only a fool would attack us.” see Ra'anan, Gavriel, International Policy Formation in the USSR (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1983), p. 18Google Scholar. On some new revelations along the same lines, see Perechenev, Y., “Ten Volumes About the War,” Moscow News, no. 38, 20 09 1987, p. 10Google Scholar, citing Simonov, K. M., ”Zametki k biografii G. K. Zhukova” (Notes for the biography of G. K. Zhukov), Voennoistoricheskii zhurnal, no. 9, 1987, pp. 49–51Google Scholar. We are grateful to Cindy Roberts for this citation.

61. Stalin, cited in Fischer, Louis, Stalin's Road from Peace to War (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), p. 304Google Scholar.

62. For insightful analyses of the situation, see Taylor, Telford, Munich (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979), pp. 452–56Google Scholar; and Posen, Barry, “Competing Images of the Soviet Union,” World Politics 39 (07 1987), pp. 579–604CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63. For this evidence, see footnotes 57 and 59–62 above.

64. In Sources of Military Doctrine, chap. 4, Posen describes the French military strategyas driven by the desire to pass the costs of fighting to the British.

65. Murray, , Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 348Google Scholar.

66. For a review of the complexities of the evidence on this, see Adamthwaite, Anthony, France and the Coming of the Second World War, 1936–1939 (London: Frank Cass, 1977), pp. 269–79Google Scholar.

67. Gamelin, cited in ibid., p. 232.

68. Cadogan, cited in ibid., p. 232. Kitchener had organized the expansion of the Britisharmy for deployment in France in World War I.

69. Gamelin, cited in ibid., pp. 232–34.

70. Gamelin's opinion of 23 August 1939, cited in ibid., p. 340. See also ibid., p. 311.

71. Daladier, cited in ibid., pp. 226 and 230.

72. Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, chap 4.

73. Adamthwaite, , France and the Coming of the Second World War, pp. 252 and 274Google Scholar.

74. For additional evidence in support of this interpretation, see Gates, Eleanor M., End of the Affair: The Collapse of the Anglo–French Alliance, 1939–1940 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), pp. 57–58Google Scholar.

75. Bond, Brian, British Military Policy Between the Two World Wars (Oxford: Clarendon, 1980), p. 336Google Scholar.

76. Chamberlain's letters to family members, cited in Cowling, Maurice, The Impact of Hitler (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975), pp. 355–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Bond, , British Military Power, p. 253Google Scholar; and Gibb, N. H.s, Grand Strategy, vol. 1, Rearmament Policy (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1976), pp. 637–38Google Scholar. Bond and Gibbs also note, however, that the notions of defensive advantage held by Chamberlain and Leslie Hore-Belisha were not universally held within British official circles. We are grateful to Randall Schweller for help on this point.

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78. Murray, , Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 298Google Scholar.

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81. See, for example, the views of Sir John Simon, Chancellor of the Exchequer, cited in Murray, , Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 274Google Scholar; and the views of the Chiefs of Staff, cited in Newman, , March 1939, p. 139Google Scholar. See also Adamthwaite, , France and the Coming of the Second World War, p. 51Google Scholar.

82. Adamthwaite, , France and the Coming of the Second World War, p. 71Google Scholar.

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84. British Chiefs of Staff, cited in Adamthwaite, , France and the Coming of the Second World War, p. 253Google Scholar. See also Dilks, , Diaries of Sir Alexander Cadogan, p. 166Google Scholar. In Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 71, Murray argues, mostly by inference, that the Britishchange on the continental commitment in 1939 was due to the loss of Czechoslovakia's thirty-four divisions from the European military equation. In British Military Policy, p. 296, Bond notes that Britain's military attaché in Paris took this view.

85. Vansittart, , cited in , Murray, Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 69Google Scholar.

86. For information on Chamberlain's views, see Rock, William R., Neville Chamberlain (New York: Twayne, 1969), p. 180Google Scholar; Cowling, , Impact of Hitler, p. 395Google Scholar; and Colvin, Ian, The Chamberlain Cabinet (London: Gollancz, 1971), p. 174Google Scholar. For background on air power policyand perceptions, see Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine, chap. 5; and Murray, , Change in the European Balance of Power, pp. 208 and 251–53Google Scholar.

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88. Adamthwaite, , France and the Coming of the Second World War, p. 320Google Scholar.

89. For a discussion of the events in 1914, see Snyder, Ideology of the Offensive. For similarpoints about 1938–39, see Posen, Sources of Military Doctrine. In “Causes of War,” Van Evera offers a general theory of this type.

90. see Bond, Brian and Alexander, Martin, “Liddell Hart and De Gaulle: The Doctrine of Limited Liability and Mobile Defense,” in Paret, Peter, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, 2d ed. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 612Google Scholar; and Mearsheimer, , Liddell Hart and the Weight of History, pp. 107, 111–12, and 128Google Scholar.

91. Murray, , Change in the European Balance of Power, p. 13Google Scholar.

92. We thank Stephen Walt for suggesting this possibility. Walt's Origins of Alliances appliesa variant of balance-of-power theory to Middle Eastern case studies.

93. For background, see Bartlett, C. J., Great Britain and Sea Power, 1815–1853 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963)Google Scholar.

94. For this argument as applied to the present bipolar setting, see Jervis, Robert, The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.