The Great War Between Western Powers

The Great War, or World War I, ended in 1918 with the Treaty of Paris. It marked the beginning of a new era. During the war, there was a boom in the economy and employment was easy to find. The damage the war caused on the land in Europe was catastrophic; with the trenches and heavy artillery and machinery being used to destroy each other and take cities, it is amazing that there was anything left. Many people, soldiers and civilians, died during the war. After World War I, many countries gained their independence, and many countries suffered severe economic debt due to the expensive war reparations.

World War One, appropriately named the Great War in the heat of its battles, was the war that many thought would end all other wars. And at the time, it certainly seemed that would be the case. It was a new type of a war, there were new, terrifying weapons, leading to deaths in numbers unseen from previous wars. The battles dragged on, it became trench warfare. There seemed to be no end in sight for the longest time. But the war did end and the people and politicians of the 1920s were left to deal with the aftermath. Most of the men that went to war went home from the front lines, others were not as lucky, or possibly, they were luckier to have died a noble death considering what was to come. The effects that the war left were felt both

Realism and Liberalism are two extremely prominent theories of international relations. These doctrines exhibit sagacious perceptions about war, foreign affairs and domestic relations. The fundamental principles of protocol in which we rely upon aren’t always apprehensive (Karle, Warren, 2003). By interpreting the data one could fathom these ideas. The assessment of these faculties wield noteworthy dominance about the concepts of international affairs. In analyzing this data, you will comprehend the variant relationship between Realism and Liberalism.

The alliance system, imperialism, arms race, and military plans created a perfect situation for a war in Europe, which would eventually become the Great War. With Germany, Great Britain, France, and Russia being the top powers in Europe, these countries would be the front runners in the discussion of the topics mentioned above and how their participation in those topics eventually led to the Great War. The order of topics to discuss that would ultimately lead to the Great War would be Imperialism being the spark that would lead to an arms race, which would then lead to an alliance system, with military plans truly making the war a world war.

There was no single reason why WW1 began, but several factors led to it. Tensions throughout Europe had been growing for many years – nationalism, an arms race, disputes over territories and the division of Europe into two hostile groups were all factors that contributed and helped lead to the beginning of the Great War. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Serbian terrorists led to the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, July 29th 1914. Around this time, Russia mobilized troops to prevent Serbia being crushed. Germany declared war on Russia and, realizing that France would support Russia, declared war on France as well. I don’t see how declaring war on multiple countries at the same time is logical battle strategy. But they thought what they thought. After Germany invaded the neutral country Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany. Japan, seeing the chance to seize German land located in China, also declared war on Germany. Bulgaria and Turkey sided with the Central Powers and soon most countries in Europe had become involved in the Great War.

Realism is a theory which believes that sovereign states are the primary actors in the international system. It also believes that the international system has always been anarchic due to the nature of states not trusting each other and each state seeking to gain or maximize its own power capability. The Realist approach to the Cold War was also that of an “anarchical constitutive” and had seen the Cold War as something that was not out of the ordinary. The realists believed that states are always competing to maximize their own power, “the basic premise of its understanding is that the Cold War was not historically unique. the Cold War rather reflected in general terms the ongoing logic of inter-state conflict derived from the anarchical constitutive nature of the international system, and the ‘power maximization’ policies of states” R.Saull (2001:7).

The Great War also considered to be World War I, although not initially named that due to not knowing that there would have been a second one. The war lasted from 1914-1918 and was one of the most violent wars known to history. Before war broke out many of these countries were flourishing economically and wanting to advance their country.

“ realism is an approaches to international relations that has emerged gradually through the work of a series of analysts who have situated themselves within, and thus delimited, a distinctive but still diverse style or tradition of analysis”. (Donnelly, 2000 : 6)

Liberal internationalism by its very essence is the idea of peaceful co-operation in order to maintain both world order and create harmony for its state to live in by democratic means. In R Gardner’s The Comeback of Liberal Internationalisms he defines this by very similar means, suggesting this political tradition relies on “the necessity of leadership by political democracies” . Following the onset of the 20th century the international political sphere has been characterised by the creations of institutions which have sought to establish a democratic peace and in many ways often failing to do so. The inability to prevent some of the most violent conflicts of the last 120 years is perhaps central to the critique that liberal internationalism should be deemed as far too idealistic in a modern world. In an increasingly familiar landscape of tyrannical, dangerous leaders it is perhaps unsurprising that the realist school of thought has come to dominate academic analysis of the current world situation. It would be hard to disagree with the notion that liberal internationalism is simply not the solution for the problems which still exist within the world today when you consider the level of ideological disagreement which is consistently played out upon the world stage. While all

For Realism in particular, this criticism is primarily focused on its state-centric approach. One of Realism’s main assertions is that the states are best unit of analysis (John, 132). Critical Theorists believe that in the context of Globalization, this view is “increasingly problematic” (Beck, 463). According to Ulrich Beck, the “mistakes of the national perspective are recognizable to the extent that boundaries have become permeable and interdependences, which transcend all borders, are growing exponentially” (463). Realists continue to analyze (only) the State, despite mounting evidence that the state may not always be the most influential actor. By focusing so much on the Nation-state, and discounting the role of Globalization, Realism fails to account for large-scale transformation. In other words, Realism “is a kind of political irrealism because it neglects the possibility and reality of a second ‘Great Transformation’ of the global power game” (Beck 457). It believes that the world will stay as it currently is forever.

The neorealist approach was initially started by Kenneth Waltz during the second world war. It was a development on classical realism, building upon the ideas of an anarchic international system, whilst also branching away from the classical realist thought. Realism came to be a popular ideology during world war two, but it’s origins go much further back, dating to 431-404 BC Thucydides’ account of the Peloponnesian wars. Within this essay, I will be primarily comparing the works of Hans Morganthau, a classical realist, and Kenneth Waltz, a neorealist, who developed a more integral stance on realism. Between these two political thinkers, I will be comparing and contrasting their realist and neorealist views on the international system and

Meanwhile in realism, for which international relations are driven by the states’ security and material interests defined in terms of

Because realism has changed so much throughout the cold war and neorealism is not a completely united theory either, it would be very difficult to compare realism with neorealism in general. Instead I will focus principally on the ideas proposed by the main and founding theorists: Hans J. Morgenthau of realism and Kenneth Waltz of neorealism. Realism can be characterized as states acting out of the desire for power, deriving from human nature, which results in conflicts whereas neorealism puts the roots of conflicts on the anarchic international structure leading states to form policies of self-help. States are primarily concerned with survival because every state possesses some form of offensive capability and the anarchic structure does

In the fields of International Relations, there are two important theories, idealism and realism. They are two contrasting and competing approaches in study of international relations. Idealism is “what could be”, planning the world as what they wish for it to become. Realism is “what actually is”, seeing the world as it actually is. People may ask, which one is more preferable? Though it’s a decision of one’s own perception that will never come to a correct answer, I argue that realism is more preferential because peace that idealists promote isn’t applicable for everything in this complicated world, making idealism too normative.

History of humanity is full of situations and events which is hard to understand and explain: wars, conflicts, successions to throne, or even local relations. During the history, many philosophers, thinkers, politicians, and scholars have tried to explain what the reasons behind those issues and what the possible results of them are. These efforts to explanation has led to creation of a social science: international relations. “International relations, seeks to go beyond ephemeral and common-sense: to reflect more deeply on events, structures, processes and actors, and to offer explanations, interpretations and normative analyses” (Devetak and Burke et al., 2012, p. 35). It can be concluded from this quotation that international relations’ main aim is to explain phenomena deeply. By doing explanation, international relations use some theories which were created and developed by thinkers with the help of historical process. Realism, liberalism, Marxism, constructivism, and idealism are the main theories of international relations but among these 5 mainstream theories, two of them have more validity and effectiveness: Realism and liberalism. These two theories of international relations have a very high reputation and efficiency to explain and understand of the historical process. Realism and liberalism may seem totally different from each other but at some certain points they nearly have the same ideas and features. This essay will explain what the main similarities and