WILSON AND THE WAR AIMS

2021 ◽  
pp. 140-148
Keyword(s):  
War Aims

The Issues and the Adversaries

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. R. Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Roman Emperor ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Ideological Conflict ◽  
War Aims

In April 1792, France had declared war on the “King of Hungary and Bohemia,” that is the House of Austria or Hapsburg, which, since it possessed most of Belgium, was the most important of the powers that adjoined the French frontiers. By the following summer the French were also at war with the kingdoms of Prussia and Sardinia, and by 1793 with Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and the Bourbon Monarchy of Spain. Despite occasional appearances, or stated war aims, the war that began in April 1792 became an ideological conflict between new and old—between “democratic” and “aristocratic” forms of society in the sense explained in the preceding volume. This chapter focuses on this complex story and nations involved. It begins with a tale of two cities, involving ceremonial events in Frankfurt and Paris on July 14, 1792. It was, of course, Bastille Day, but it was also the date of the imperial coronation of Francis II, a young man of twenty-four who proved to be the last Holy Roman Emperor.

Victory and the Ending of Conflicts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Just War ◽  
Conflict Situation ◽  
State Agency ◽  
Political Leaders ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Jus Post Bellum ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Just Peace

Scholars and political leaders have recently grown increasingly uncomfortable with terms like victory and ‘unconditional surrender’. One reason for this becomes clear when reconsidering the concept of ‘victory’ in terms of ethics and policy in times of war. The just war tradition emphasizes limits and restraint in the conduct of war but also highlights state agency, the rule of law, and appropriate war aims in its historic tenets of right authority, just cause, and right intention. Indeed, the establishment of order and justice are legitimate war aims. Should we not also consider them exemplars, or markers, of just victory? This chapter discusses debates over how conflicts end that have made ‘victory’ problematic and evaluates how just war principles—including jus post bellum principles—help define a moral post-conflict situation that is not just peace, but may perhaps be called ‘victory’ as well.

II. Policy Formulation for National Security

1949 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 534-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sidney W. Souers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Policy Formulation ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
World War ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Military Campaign

The National Security Council, created by the National Security Act of 1947, is the instrument through which the President obtains the collective advice of the appropriate officials of the executive branch concerning the integration of domestic, foreign, and military policies relating to the national security. An outline of the genesis of this new governmental agency will indicate in part its present rôle.Even before World War II, a few far-sighted men were seeking for a means of correlating our foreign policy with our military and economic capabilities. During the war, as military operations began to have an increasing political and economic effect, the pressure for such a correlation increased. It became apparent that the conduct of the war involved more than a purely military campaign to defeat the enemy's armed forces. Questions arose of war aims, of occupational policies, of relations with governments-in-exile and former enemy states, of the postwar international situation with its implications for our security, and of complicated international machinery.

Covenants Without the Sword International Law and the Protection of Civilians in Times of War

2006 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Valentino ◽  
Paul Huth ◽  
Sarah Croco
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
International Law ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Regime Type ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Long Duration ◽  
International Laws ◽  
The Hague ◽  
War Aims

Do the international laws of war effectively protect civilian populations from deliberate attack? In a statistical analysis of all interstate wars from 1900 to 2003 the authors find no evidence that signatories of The Hague or Geneva Conventions intentionally kill fewer civilians during war than do nonsignatories. This result holds for democratic signatories and for wars in which both sides are parties to the treaty. Nor do they find evidence that a state's regime type or the existence of ethnic or religious differences between combatants explains the variation in civilian targeting. They find strong support, however, for their theoretical framework, which suggests that combatants seek to kill enemy civilians when they believe that doing so will coerce their adversaries into early surrender or undermine their adversaries' war-related domestic production. The authors find that states fighting wars of attrition or counterinsurgency, states fighting for expansive war aims, and states fighting wars of long duration kill significantly more civilians than states in other kinds of wars.

scholarly journals Flexible Fatherlands: “Patriotism” among Polish-speaking German Citizens during World War I

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
James Bjork
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
German Empire ◽  
Passive Compliance ◽  
War Effort ◽  
War Aims

AbstractThis article examines the experiences of Polish-speaking subjects of the German Empire during World War I. Fighting for wartime empires tended to be retrospectively defined as involuntary service to a “foreign” cause. But the author of this article argues that it was very difficult to distinguish ostensibly passive “compliance” from ostensibly active “patriotism.” The apparent tensions between a German imperial agenda and Polish nationalism also proved to be highly navigable in practice, with German war aims often seen as not only reconcilable with but even conducive to the Polish national cause. Drawing on a recent wave of relevant historiography in English, German, and Polish, and incorporating further analysis of individual testimonies, the article explores the various ways in which “non-German” contributors to the German war effort tried to make sense of their awkward wartime biographies.

The September Program: Reflections on the Evidence

1978 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 348-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wayne C. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Diary Entry ◽  
Indirect Control ◽  
The Press ◽  
Political Warfare ◽  
Revolutionary Movements ◽  
War Aims ◽  
Individual Human

In August 1914 Kurt Riezler accompanied Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg to the Supreme Headquarters in Koblenz and Luxembourg. His duties were not clearly defined and included a variety of things: He worked on war aims, parliamentary speeches, revolutionary movements, and domestic political questions. He helped interpret the chancellor's policies to the press, establish guidelines for censorship, and write anonymous articles supporting Bethmann Hollweg's policies. He could be called Bethmann Hollweg's assistant for political warfare.Unlike most Germans Riezler sensed from the beginning that a German victory was not assured. On August 14, 1914, in his first diary entry after the outbreak of war, he noted that although “everybody was apparently happy to be able for once to dedicate himself unreservedly to a great cause, … no one doubts or appears to consider even for an instant what a gamble war is, especially this war.” Riezler also realized that the “ideas of 1914” would not retain their strength forever. “Just as the storm frightens the vermin out of the air—when it becomes quieter again, everything crawls out of its refuge—and emerges again in the state as well as in individual human beings.” This realization protected Riezler from the naive belief that Germany could bear a long war without an obvious effort to achieve a negotiated peace, without a new European order which at most allowed Germany indirect control, and without domestic political concessions to the German masses.

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