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On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace
By lucidly revealing the common threads that connect the ancient confrontations between Athens & Sparta & between Rome & Carthage with the two calamitous world wars of the 20th century & the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kagan reveals new insights into the nature of war & peace that are vitally important & often surprising.
573 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1994
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About the author
Donald Kagan
127 books238 followersDonald Kagan (May 1, 1932 – August 6, 2021) was a Lithuanian-born American historian and classicist at Yale University specializing in ancient Greece. He formerly taught in the Department of History at Cornell University. Kagan was considered among the foremost American scholars of Greek history and is notable for his four-volume history of the Peloponnesian War.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
March 21, 2014
Rather than write a completely new review of Donald Kagan’s The Origins of War, I’ve decided to respond to some of the best insights from reviews published on the web and on goodreads as well as to discuss a few of my favorite points in the book.
Kagan’s book is perhaps one of the most compelling historical studies for why anyone interested in peace and the preservation of peace should be familiar with classical realism (Kissinger's Diplomacy is another). What Kagan accomplishes in his five case studies is to show the relevance of a Thucydidean understanding of state motivations (the triad of motivations)--fear, interest, and honor--and the malleability of these motivations throughout time.
My own thinking is that all roads lead through classical realism to one degree or another--even Critical Security Studies and Peace Studies. Kagan’s book is not overly concerned with IR issues of theory, and the book is better for it. A softer theoretical framework--very short introduction and conclusions chapters--and the flexible framework of classical realism are the perfect compliment to the thick case study chapters that let each historical case stand as their own stories about the preservation of peace and the causes of war.
Reading some of the other reviews on goodreads, I noticed that there has been a tendency to see Kagan as an advocate of “hard talk, big stick.” I see his points as more historically-based and nuanced than that. For example in his case study on the Peloponnesian War and the First World War, he praises the construction of complex methods of conflict resolution (though he rightfully shows that institutions alone are not enough to keep the peace). He also demonstrates how Otto von Bismark can be seen as a positive model of appeasement. His suggestion that leaders who are bullies be met with strong language backed by adequate force is a point that is well established not only by history but also by basic applied psychology.
James Mellon sums up many of the key points of the book nicely: “Kagan...harbors few illusions about either human nature or alleged natural tendencies in international politics toward peace. Many will find his account dark and pessimistic. In terms familiar to theorists of international politics, his account is unremittingly realist. States facing threats must, if war is to be averted, Kagan warns, be prepared either to deter with a credible and adequate show of force, or to resolve differences and ameliorate grievances through making concessions from a position of strength. What must be avoided, he insists, is either attempts to deter with inadequate or purely nominal force, or attempts to resolve differences through making concessions from a position of weakness; either will, he cautions, be likely to be counterproductive, encouraging, rather than deterring, potential aggression.” (http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/...)
Littered throughout the book are the kinds of gems that only really well-told stories can bring to life. One such gem has to do with the character of appeasement. On page 317-318 the author quotes Churchill: “Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.”
Another great book to read--one that more fully integrates International Relations theory with the study of history--is Richard Ned Lebow’s A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Lebow’s book is the best I can think of to expand one of the best points made in Kagan’s book, including the strong role of “honor” as a motivation in war and peace. Lebow’s book greatly expands on this point. Like Kagan's book, Lebow's book is steeped in history and is not a light read at all.
Kagan’s book is perhaps one of the most compelling historical studies for why anyone interested in peace and the preservation of peace should be familiar with classical realism (Kissinger's Diplomacy is another). What Kagan accomplishes in his five case studies is to show the relevance of a Thucydidean understanding of state motivations (the triad of motivations)--fear, interest, and honor--and the malleability of these motivations throughout time.
My own thinking is that all roads lead through classical realism to one degree or another--even Critical Security Studies and Peace Studies. Kagan’s book is not overly concerned with IR issues of theory, and the book is better for it. A softer theoretical framework--very short introduction and conclusions chapters--and the flexible framework of classical realism are the perfect compliment to the thick case study chapters that let each historical case stand as their own stories about the preservation of peace and the causes of war.
Reading some of the other reviews on goodreads, I noticed that there has been a tendency to see Kagan as an advocate of “hard talk, big stick.” I see his points as more historically-based and nuanced than that. For example in his case study on the Peloponnesian War and the First World War, he praises the construction of complex methods of conflict resolution (though he rightfully shows that institutions alone are not enough to keep the peace). He also demonstrates how Otto von Bismark can be seen as a positive model of appeasement. His suggestion that leaders who are bullies be met with strong language backed by adequate force is a point that is well established not only by history but also by basic applied psychology.
James Mellon sums up many of the key points of the book nicely: “Kagan...harbors few illusions about either human nature or alleged natural tendencies in international politics toward peace. Many will find his account dark and pessimistic. In terms familiar to theorists of international politics, his account is unremittingly realist. States facing threats must, if war is to be averted, Kagan warns, be prepared either to deter with a credible and adequate show of force, or to resolve differences and ameliorate grievances through making concessions from a position of strength. What must be avoided, he insists, is either attempts to deter with inadequate or purely nominal force, or attempts to resolve differences through making concessions from a position of weakness; either will, he cautions, be likely to be counterproductive, encouraging, rather than deterring, potential aggression.” (http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/...)
Littered throughout the book are the kinds of gems that only really well-told stories can bring to life. One such gem has to do with the character of appeasement. On page 317-318 the author quotes Churchill: “Appeasement in itself may be good or bad according to the circumstances. Appeasement from weakness and fear is alike futile and fatal. Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble and might be the surest and perhaps the only path to world peace.”
Another great book to read--one that more fully integrates International Relations theory with the study of history--is Richard Ned Lebow’s A Cultural Theory of International Relations. Lebow’s book is the best I can think of to expand one of the best points made in Kagan’s book, including the strong role of “honor” as a motivation in war and peace. Lebow’s book greatly expands on this point. Like Kagan's book, Lebow's book is steeped in history and is not a light read at all.
July 14, 2025
There’s something oddly poetic about reading On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace during the monsoons of 2024—while rain lashes against the window and the wind carries a strange mix of serenity and foreboding. It’s in that clash of calm and violence that Donald Kagan’s work resonates most. Because this is not just a history book; it’s a storm forecast.
Kagan, with his signature clarity and classical grounding, takes us through five conflicts—The Peloponnesian War, the Second Punic War, World War I, World War II, and the Cuban Missile Crisis—not just to chronicle what happened, but to dig beneath the surface: Why did these wars occur? Could they have been prevented? The answers are never simple. That’s what makes the book so unsettling, so necessary.
The monsoon became metaphor. Each chapter felt like a rumble of distant thunder—the slow, inevitable build-up to a lightning strike. Kagan doesn’t shout. He warns. His analysis is cold-eyed and cleanly cut, drawn from a historian’s surgical dissection, not a polemicist’s outrage. In each case, he shows how misjudgments, pride, fear, and failed deterrence dance in a predictable yet tragic pattern. War, it turns out, isn’t always about evil—it’s often about misreading intentions, or clinging too tightly to national myths.
What I admired most is how Kagan refuses fatalism. While war appears to be a recurring tragedy, he insists on the possibility of peace—but only through strength, clarity, and will. It’s not an easy hope; it’s a cautious, muscular one. The message lands hard in a world still trying to make sense of Ukraine, Taiwan, AI arms races, and climate-induced conflicts.
Reading this in 2024 was like reading a philosophical manual disguised as a history book. It doesn’t scream urgency. It simmers with it.
By the time the last chapter arrived—the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis—I wasn’t thinking about Kennedy and Khrushchev anymore. I was thinking about today’s leaders, today’s “red lines,” and how little margin for error we really have.
Kagan makes the past feel like a mirror. A dark one, yes—but one worth looking into before the next storm.
Kagan, with his signature clarity and classical grounding, takes us through five conflicts—The Peloponnesian War, the Second Punic War, World War I, World War II, and the Cuban Missile Crisis—not just to chronicle what happened, but to dig beneath the surface: Why did these wars occur? Could they have been prevented? The answers are never simple. That’s what makes the book so unsettling, so necessary.
The monsoon became metaphor. Each chapter felt like a rumble of distant thunder—the slow, inevitable build-up to a lightning strike. Kagan doesn’t shout. He warns. His analysis is cold-eyed and cleanly cut, drawn from a historian’s surgical dissection, not a polemicist’s outrage. In each case, he shows how misjudgments, pride, fear, and failed deterrence dance in a predictable yet tragic pattern. War, it turns out, isn’t always about evil—it’s often about misreading intentions, or clinging too tightly to national myths.
What I admired most is how Kagan refuses fatalism. While war appears to be a recurring tragedy, he insists on the possibility of peace—but only through strength, clarity, and will. It’s not an easy hope; it’s a cautious, muscular one. The message lands hard in a world still trying to make sense of Ukraine, Taiwan, AI arms races, and climate-induced conflicts.
Reading this in 2024 was like reading a philosophical manual disguised as a history book. It doesn’t scream urgency. It simmers with it.
By the time the last chapter arrived—the nuclear brinkmanship of the Cuban Missile Crisis—I wasn’t thinking about Kennedy and Khrushchev anymore. I was thinking about today’s leaders, today’s “red lines,” and how little margin for error we really have.
Kagan makes the past feel like a mirror. A dark one, yes—but one worth looking into before the next storm.
June 3, 2017
once heard a historian famous for his biographies and histories of modern warfare complain that all Donald Kagan does or did was publish books based on his various university lectures. That same historian would end his career by doing some of the same types of books. What delights me about Kegan histories is that he does not simply recount events he seeks the greater meanings that connect events. This places Kagan near the top of the second of my three-tiered approach to historians. At level I a historian recounts in some detail what happened during the course of some important event(s). At level II a historian will speak more generally about a number of events seeking to explain not so much what happened as what meaning we should take from what happened. At the third level the historian is typically speaking to other historians using events to hypothesize how historians should go about analyzing and reporting events.
In On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace Kegan draws on lectures he had given at Hobart College in 1967 and later in 1970 at Yale University. These facts are virtually the first statements in this book suggesting that Kagan is not apologetic about converting lectures into standalone books. My edition is about 550 pages long leading me to believe that there is deal more depth and content in the book then would've been in the lectures.
The hypothesis that Donald Kegan presents is that war results from a small set of motives as originally formulated by the ancient Greek Thucydides. These motives are honor, fear and interest. To our ear the term honor would seem something of an ancient casus belli . I do not think it is too cynical to suggest that one reason for some contemporary American military action can be an elaboration of the concept of honor into the suggestion that it is dishonorable not to take action in the name of the humanitarian value of intervention.
That one statement can be converted to serve any number of political viewpoints none of which are of interest to this particular review. It is sufficient to say that "honor" if defined broadly enough can cover almost any instance where uniformed military might, read that as " violence ", is applied for reasons not clearly linked to either an immediate defense of national interests or out of a closely related concept fear of threats against national interests. And so we have honor, fear, interests.
Given that this is history reported in support of a hypothesis Kagan uses five historic cases but not in historic order. His case studies are, in the order printed the Peloponnesian war (431 - 404 BC), the First World War, the Second Punic war (218 - 201 BC) the Second World War and the Cuban Missile Crisis ( a nearly avoided war). Note that professor Kegan has separately published books on all but I believe the Cuban missile crisis.
In each case study Kagan will give a historic context, the view from each of the major belligerents what drove the decision for each belligerent what events brought the crisis to ahead that is the outbreak of war ending that case study with his analysis of the actual causes of that war.
Ultimately Kagan will suggest that for nations to be at war is perhaps more natural than for nations to be at peace. Consequently the best way to avoid war is to be prepared for war. The suggestion being: opponents are typically very good judges of your ability to fight and will avoid fights where they do not have a reasonable expectation of victory. In this light Kagan points out that part of the cause of the Cuban missile crisis was a belief that America, Pres. Kennedy lacked the will to use what both nations knew to be a superior military capability.
While the majority of each case study is built around extensive analysis of each belligerent prior to coming to the point of violence; the analysis that matters is Kagan's take on the causes of the war. That is, he has told us why he thinks nations fight. The five case studies are presented to demonstrate his initial hypothesis.
I've lost count of how many Donald Kagan books I have read. I like his use of the language. I like how he makes you think and how he uses events to help you understand them from a different point of view. One of the major activities of the literate military history buffs is to pick apart the detailing of facts. Donald Kagan books are rarely about these details. They are about asking yourself why? Why does it matter?
If Kagan is right in On the Origins of War modern civilization is presented with the simple fact that populations are always at risk and the expense of warfare is something we must all bear in the thin hope that killing can be forestalled if not prevented. If this is correct and I can only offer optimism as an argument against it, one of the roads to longer periods of relatively less violence must as a practical matter include defensive treaties that require the sharing of military costs between entities who must also share what Kegan defines as interests. I would like to believe that that shared interests imply shared fears and I more than suspect that individual countries will still act individually in the name of honor. Ultimately this entire approach prefers a practical philosophy over humanist philosophy and that alone will make this book objectionable to a number of readers.
I am aware of these objections there is certainly some validity to them. I have enough military experience to know that given a choice Defense Departments would gladly and productively consume every nation's resources. Facilitating this kind of budget grabbing are very powerful lobbyists backed by very large industries who also have more or less legitimate products that a modern military "must-have".
To read in Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace it is not necessary for you to agree with any aspect of his analysis. I enjoyed the man's language and I benefit from pursuing his thought processes. Informed citizens can benefit from the exposure to this man without fear of becoming mindless warmongering hawks. Instead a reader will become a more informed citizen.
In On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace Kegan draws on lectures he had given at Hobart College in 1967 and later in 1970 at Yale University. These facts are virtually the first statements in this book suggesting that Kagan is not apologetic about converting lectures into standalone books. My edition is about 550 pages long leading me to believe that there is deal more depth and content in the book then would've been in the lectures.
The hypothesis that Donald Kegan presents is that war results from a small set of motives as originally formulated by the ancient Greek Thucydides. These motives are honor, fear and interest. To our ear the term honor would seem something of an ancient casus belli . I do not think it is too cynical to suggest that one reason for some contemporary American military action can be an elaboration of the concept of honor into the suggestion that it is dishonorable not to take action in the name of the humanitarian value of intervention.
That one statement can be converted to serve any number of political viewpoints none of which are of interest to this particular review. It is sufficient to say that "honor" if defined broadly enough can cover almost any instance where uniformed military might, read that as " violence ", is applied for reasons not clearly linked to either an immediate defense of national interests or out of a closely related concept fear of threats against national interests. And so we have honor, fear, interests.
Given that this is history reported in support of a hypothesis Kagan uses five historic cases but not in historic order. His case studies are, in the order printed the Peloponnesian war (431 - 404 BC), the First World War, the Second Punic war (218 - 201 BC) the Second World War and the Cuban Missile Crisis ( a nearly avoided war). Note that professor Kegan has separately published books on all but I believe the Cuban missile crisis.
In each case study Kagan will give a historic context, the view from each of the major belligerents what drove the decision for each belligerent what events brought the crisis to ahead that is the outbreak of war ending that case study with his analysis of the actual causes of that war.
Ultimately Kagan will suggest that for nations to be at war is perhaps more natural than for nations to be at peace. Consequently the best way to avoid war is to be prepared for war. The suggestion being: opponents are typically very good judges of your ability to fight and will avoid fights where they do not have a reasonable expectation of victory. In this light Kagan points out that part of the cause of the Cuban missile crisis was a belief that America, Pres. Kennedy lacked the will to use what both nations knew to be a superior military capability.
While the majority of each case study is built around extensive analysis of each belligerent prior to coming to the point of violence; the analysis that matters is Kagan's take on the causes of the war. That is, he has told us why he thinks nations fight. The five case studies are presented to demonstrate his initial hypothesis.
I've lost count of how many Donald Kagan books I have read. I like his use of the language. I like how he makes you think and how he uses events to help you understand them from a different point of view. One of the major activities of the literate military history buffs is to pick apart the detailing of facts. Donald Kagan books are rarely about these details. They are about asking yourself why? Why does it matter?
If Kagan is right in On the Origins of War modern civilization is presented with the simple fact that populations are always at risk and the expense of warfare is something we must all bear in the thin hope that killing can be forestalled if not prevented. If this is correct and I can only offer optimism as an argument against it, one of the roads to longer periods of relatively less violence must as a practical matter include defensive treaties that require the sharing of military costs between entities who must also share what Kegan defines as interests. I would like to believe that that shared interests imply shared fears and I more than suspect that individual countries will still act individually in the name of honor. Ultimately this entire approach prefers a practical philosophy over humanist philosophy and that alone will make this book objectionable to a number of readers.
I am aware of these objections there is certainly some validity to them. I have enough military experience to know that given a choice Defense Departments would gladly and productively consume every nation's resources. Facilitating this kind of budget grabbing are very powerful lobbyists backed by very large industries who also have more or less legitimate products that a modern military "must-have".
To read in Donald Kagan's On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace it is not necessary for you to agree with any aspect of his analysis. I enjoyed the man's language and I benefit from pursuing his thought processes. Informed citizens can benefit from the exposure to this man without fear of becoming mindless warmongering hawks. Instead a reader will become a more informed citizen.
November 23, 2021
Many historians address the causes of war. Donald Kagan chooses to typify the step-by-step record of events leading to 4 major wars: The Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, and the Great War and 2d World War of the century just passed. He concludes with 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis, an example of direct confrontation that didn't result in war yet exhibited many of the elements of cause Kagan discusses in the earlier wars.
The stories of how these wars began are the subject of many books. I think what makes Kagan's so valuable is the detail he devotes to the actions and reasons of leaders culminating in the outbreak of wars. From the threat Sparta felt from a rising Athens to the Roman-Carthaginian control of the Mediterranean to the hegemonic provocation of Germany in the 20th century the competition between established power and a rising challenger is at the heart of them. The missile crisis, which represents the title's preservation of peace, was about the misperception of a leader's weakness, though weak leaders contributed to the world wars, too. Competition over the distribution of power among states is the primary reason for war. However, the demands for respect, greater prestige, and honor are as important reasons for conflict as a nation seeking greater security and material advantage.
Kagan wrote the important 4-volume history of the Peloponnesian War published from 1969 to 1987. He uses his standing as the leading authority of that war to position it as a kind of seminal history from which the patterns and elements of subsequent wars flowed. He doesn't tell us the nature of state versus state competition or human nature doesn't change, but it's implicit in this thorough examination of why wars begin. Though his history ends in 1962, it's commonly understood today that the Aegean basin of ancient Greece points to the Balkans of the 20th century and to the Taiwan Strait today. The human nature of those Greeks can be found in Neville Chamberlain, Kennedy, and Obama. At the same time he's wise enough to see the competition and human nature of the ancients weren't grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition as are ours. That impulse to victory and domination gained by raw power has been tempered by the ideals of modern religion into placing more value in preserving the peace and human life. While that perception doesn't change the essential equation of state competition, it's a distinction important to him, and his emphasis on the point late in the book is compelling.
Published 26 years ago, Kagan's history is still as important today in illustrating how competition between nations can boil over. The dynamic of that competition never changes, and its pressures will continue to test our leaders.
The stories of how these wars began are the subject of many books. I think what makes Kagan's so valuable is the detail he devotes to the actions and reasons of leaders culminating in the outbreak of wars. From the threat Sparta felt from a rising Athens to the Roman-Carthaginian control of the Mediterranean to the hegemonic provocation of Germany in the 20th century the competition between established power and a rising challenger is at the heart of them. The missile crisis, which represents the title's preservation of peace, was about the misperception of a leader's weakness, though weak leaders contributed to the world wars, too. Competition over the distribution of power among states is the primary reason for war. However, the demands for respect, greater prestige, and honor are as important reasons for conflict as a nation seeking greater security and material advantage.
Kagan wrote the important 4-volume history of the Peloponnesian War published from 1969 to 1987. He uses his standing as the leading authority of that war to position it as a kind of seminal history from which the patterns and elements of subsequent wars flowed. He doesn't tell us the nature of state versus state competition or human nature doesn't change, but it's implicit in this thorough examination of why wars begin. Though his history ends in 1962, it's commonly understood today that the Aegean basin of ancient Greece points to the Balkans of the 20th century and to the Taiwan Strait today. The human nature of those Greeks can be found in Neville Chamberlain, Kennedy, and Obama. At the same time he's wise enough to see the competition and human nature of the ancients weren't grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition as are ours. That impulse to victory and domination gained by raw power has been tempered by the ideals of modern religion into placing more value in preserving the peace and human life. While that perception doesn't change the essential equation of state competition, it's a distinction important to him, and his emphasis on the point late in the book is compelling.
Published 26 years ago, Kagan's history is still as important today in illustrating how competition between nations can boil over. The dynamic of that competition never changes, and its pressures will continue to test our leaders.
December 10, 2009
An interesting look into the cause of wars down through the ages. While his knowledge on the Peloponnesian War is without a doubt very prodigious, his understanding of World War I and II leaves something to be desired. He lays a lot of the blame for both of these wars on Britain, but for all the wrong reasons. With World War I, he misses the fact that war was not only in Britain's best interest, but that many of the British leaders were trying to create a situation in which war would be inevitable. His treatment of Germany is often times biased, and his description of the events is continually laced with historical misrepresentations, verging on inaccuracies. At one point he goes so far as to discount Barbara Tuchman as a historical revisionist, which can only be done with great peril, and he lacks the ethos to pull it off. He also completely misunderstands the motivations of Chamberlain, Churchill, and Hitler. Chamberlain was trying to make do with what he had been given, which was a nation that had virtually no navy, no army, no airforce, no money, and no ability to wage a war of any kind, while Churchill was as eager to throw his nation into another hell hole as FDR was with America. Meanwhile Hitler would probably never have gone to war with either Britain or France had he been allowed to focus his attention against Russia, as he very clearly stated in Mein Kampf, which would have relieved the world of millions of dead, not to mention several wrecked and ruined nations. None of this is to say that the NAZIs weren't evil. They were. It's just that the Allies were not a side of glowing freedom and good will, and were more often than not motivated by a very high degree of greed and power. Also, in the long run, they replaced Hitler and NAZI Germany with over half a century of a Russian dominated Europe, which was far more tyrannical and oppressive. So the whole point of the war couldn't have been over freeing Europe from oppression. Or if it was, then it was a miserable failure. Kagan's theorizing is interesting, but in the end, misleading.
He should have stayed with a topic he actually is authoritative on...i.e. the Peloponnesian War. I would recommend his book on the Peloponnesian War to any student of that conflict, and it works particularly well as a companion to Thucydides.
He should have stayed with a topic he actually is authoritative on...i.e. the Peloponnesian War. I would recommend his book on the Peloponnesian War to any student of that conflict, and it works particularly well as a companion to Thucydides.
September 11, 2019
In 321 BC, the Samnite general, Gaius Pontius, captured a large Roman force. Gaius Pontius was a young general, and thought it wise to send a message to his father, asking how he should deal with his prisoners. A day later, he received the response: 'Free them. Every one. Let them keep their dignity and leave without precondition.' Suspicious of this advice, he sent another messenger, asking for confirmation. This time the response was equally brief: 'Kill every all of them, without exception.' Confused, he asked that his father join him on the battlefield. Upon arriving, his father gave the following explanation:
'Both approaches, and no others, are valid. If you have courage enough to free the Romans, you will earn their loyalty for generations to come. If not, you can kill all your captives, earning Rome's hatred, but also weakening them and frightening into subservience, at least for some years.'
Gaius Pontius ignored his father's advice, subjecting each Roman soldier to a ritual humiliation before freeing him return to Rome. The hatred thus engendered eventually led to the fall of Samnite alliance.
This story does not feature in DK's book. Nonetheless, it is the guiding principle behind his analysis: Concessions made from a position of strength are stabilising. Moral provocations, as well as concessions made by a formerly powerful country hoping to cling to a status quo they can no longer enforce, are both highly destabilising. Also: carried to extremes, a powerful state's excessive commitment to reasonableness can be as destabilising as a policy of crass provocation.
I admire DK's scholarship and I see the point in his argument, but I have doubts about their universality. DK's view of German actions, post Bismarck, pre Hitler, as well as his judgement of Kennedy and Pericles are all much more negative than those of the consensus of historians.
It is always interesting to read a well-thought out contrarian opinion, but I don't know how far this one can be counted on to hold water.
'Both approaches, and no others, are valid. If you have courage enough to free the Romans, you will earn their loyalty for generations to come. If not, you can kill all your captives, earning Rome's hatred, but also weakening them and frightening into subservience, at least for some years.'
Gaius Pontius ignored his father's advice, subjecting each Roman soldier to a ritual humiliation before freeing him return to Rome. The hatred thus engendered eventually led to the fall of Samnite alliance.
This story does not feature in DK's book. Nonetheless, it is the guiding principle behind his analysis: Concessions made from a position of strength are stabilising. Moral provocations, as well as concessions made by a formerly powerful country hoping to cling to a status quo they can no longer enforce, are both highly destabilising. Also: carried to extremes, a powerful state's excessive commitment to reasonableness can be as destabilising as a policy of crass provocation.
I admire DK's scholarship and I see the point in his argument, but I have doubts about their universality. DK's view of German actions, post Bismarck, pre Hitler, as well as his judgement of Kennedy and Pericles are all much more negative than those of the consensus of historians.
It is always interesting to read a well-thought out contrarian opinion, but I don't know how far this one can be counted on to hold water.
May 21, 2013
Drawing parallels between political and military conflicts separated by two thousand years is a dubious business, but Classics is an embattled field in search of justification and this particular classicist has a right-wing ideological agenda. The obvious differences between the world today and that of ancient Greece, Carthage and Rome are several, a few of which are outstanding. First, there are glaring technological differences--including not only destructive devices, but also in communications. Second, there is globalization--particularly as regards global economic interdependence and the public awareness of it. Third, people are generally more educated nowadays--in the ancient world men fought, now aggressive states rely on youngsters and the relatively uneducated.
Such easy criticisms notwithstanding, Kagan writes well and I enjoy ancient history.
Such easy criticisms notwithstanding, Kagan writes well and I enjoy ancient history.
December 6, 2021
I now understand war.
September 9, 2012
Kagan is trying to justify Bush era preemptive strike policy and aggressive foreign wars by using and comparing historical examples of failed peaces. This would more accurately say "...and the preservation of the status-quo", because the authors idea of "peace" is first strike wars against those who threaten it.
The one thing that really bothers me the most is that the examples he uses (the Punic wars, WW1, WW2)are all certainly illustrative of the consequences of leaving a tenacious enemy half defeated, but have little bearing on what it means to become involved in warfare in this modern age. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that it is not a matter of crushing an enemy completely to secure victory, this simply can not be done in a insurgent style war. Anyone who reads the U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field manual, or reads any of the modern theorists on insurgent warfare (which is really all that is happening anymore) can see for themselves that destruction of the enemy by force is an unrealistic approach to this kind of warfare and that military success will never look the same again as it did even sixty years ago. It's not enough to completely destroy the enemy and remove his ability to make war because the enemy is not an army, and he makes war in the shadows with nothing but scraps.
Kagan and his children are notorious insiders. His son Frederick Kagan is credited with conceiving of the famous "surge" in Iraq, his son Robert Kagan is a notorious neo-conservative who was directly involved in the bush era insanity (see his books). The U.S. went into Iraq with a "let's just smash 'em up and go home" attitude, and IT DIDN'T WORK. How soon after Bush declared victory did it become clear that there was no victory to be had then, or ever? immediately. these guys want nothing more than a conventional war like their fathers had, with the pitched field battles like their fathers fought, but they can not have them. We will all pay the price for this desire of these few militant men in high places who want so badly the glory of days long past.
The one thing that really bothers me the most is that the examples he uses (the Punic wars, WW1, WW2)are all certainly illustrative of the consequences of leaving a tenacious enemy half defeated, but have little bearing on what it means to become involved in warfare in this modern age. Look at Afghanistan and Iraq to see that it is not a matter of crushing an enemy completely to secure victory, this simply can not be done in a insurgent style war. Anyone who reads the U.S. Army's Counterinsurgency Field manual, or reads any of the modern theorists on insurgent warfare (which is really all that is happening anymore) can see for themselves that destruction of the enemy by force is an unrealistic approach to this kind of warfare and that military success will never look the same again as it did even sixty years ago. It's not enough to completely destroy the enemy and remove his ability to make war because the enemy is not an army, and he makes war in the shadows with nothing but scraps.
Kagan and his children are notorious insiders. His son Frederick Kagan is credited with conceiving of the famous "surge" in Iraq, his son Robert Kagan is a notorious neo-conservative who was directly involved in the bush era insanity (see his books). The U.S. went into Iraq with a "let's just smash 'em up and go home" attitude, and IT DIDN'T WORK. How soon after Bush declared victory did it become clear that there was no victory to be had then, or ever? immediately. these guys want nothing more than a conventional war like their fathers had, with the pitched field battles like their fathers fought, but they can not have them. We will all pay the price for this desire of these few militant men in high places who want so badly the glory of days long past.
December 20, 2022
A thorough book that is also easy to read.
December 22, 2022
This is a fantastic study of the circumstances and features of human nature that lead to war. It looks at the Peloponnesian War, the Second Punic War, both world wars, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Again, it doesn't look at the wars themselves, but the circumstances, typically decades in the making, philosophies, misunderstandings, and mistakes that led to the wars. It was enormously educational and although it was published in 1995, nothing about it has been disproven since then and I think it should be considered important reading for any student of foreign policy.
I was especially fascinated by the study of Otto von Bismark's creation and constant nurturing of a complicated series of European alliances throughout the 1800's that prevented any single country from becoming too powerful or becoming tempted to subjugate a weaker power. It was largely successful and seems to be the model for some of the lessons and themes of the book.
I also learned a lot more about the circumstances and series of mistakes after WWI that set the stage for WWII:
"The victorious nations in the First World War brought it to an end using language of idealistic generosity in which they did not really believe, creating utopian expectations whose inevitable collapse produced bitterness and cynicism, permitting complaints used to excuse irresponsible behavior of more than one kind. They vaguely put their hopes for peace in international organizations such as the League of Nations, though no nation abandoned any sovereignty and the League had no armed forces. When the United States failed to ratify the treaty, join the League, and give a guarantee of French security, the entire basis for preserving the peace in the face of a large, bitter, and largely intact Germany was undermined. The task of preserving the peace fell to France and Britain and, given France's many weaknesses, that meant chiefly Britain.
"British leaders in the years between the wars were powerfully impressed by what they took to be the lessons of the First World War. For them the Great War and the terrible destruction that came from it were caused not by German ambition abetted by British hesitation but by the arms race, the alliance system, and the willingness of Britain to commit a land army of significant size to a war on the Continent. British leaders easily were persuaded by the liberal and radical intellectuals of the day who rejected traditional ideas of power balances and military strength as the devices for keeping the peace. They were the products of the Enlightenment's belief in not merely technological but social progress, and whether or not they were Marxists, they gave great weight to economics as the most important element in international relations." (pg. 413)
There are important specific lessons to be learned from each of the five conflicts, but here are a few of the best excerpts from the conclusion about general themes and lessons:
"A persistent and repeated error through the ages has been the failure to understand that the preservation of peace requires active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice, just as war does. In the modern world especially the sense that peace is natural and war an aberration has led to a failure in peacetime to consider the possibility of another war, which, in turn, has prevented the efforts needed to preserve the peace." (pg. 567)
"Unexpected changes and shifts in power are the warp and woof of international history. . . [quoting Paul Kennedy] 'wealth and power, or economic strength and military strength are always relative, and since all societies are subject to the inexorable tendency to change, then the international balances can never be still, and it is a folly of statesmanship to assume that they ever could be.'" (pg. 568)
"The current condition of the world, therefore, where war among major powers is hard to conceive because one of them has overwhelming military superiority and no wish to expand, will not last" (pg. 568)
"[I]n a world of sovereign states a contest among them over the distribution of power is the normal condition and that such contests often lead to war. Another observation is that the reasons for seeking more power are often not merely the search for security or material advantage. Among them are demands for greater prestige, respect, deference, in short, honor. Since such demands involve judgments even more subjective that those about material advantage, they are still harder to satisfy. Other reasons emerge from fear, often unclear and intangible, not always of immediate threats but also of more distant one, against which reassurance may not be possible." (pg. 569)
"Statistically, war has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states. The cases we have examined indicate that good will, unilateral disarmament, the avoidance of alliances, teaching and preaching of the evils of war by those states who, generally satisfied with the state of the world, seek to preserve peace, are of no avail." (pg. 570)
"Modern states, especially those who have triumphed in the Cold War and have teh greatest interest in preserving peace, and most particularly the United States, on whom the main burden of keeping the peace must fall, now and in the foreseeable future, are quite different. The martial values and the respect for power have not entirely disappeared, but they. have been overlayed by other ideas and values, some of them unknown to the classical republics. . . Even as the power and influence of formal, organized religion have waned in the last century, the influence among important segments of the population in the United States and other Western countries of the rejection of power, the evil of pursuing self-interest, the wickedness of war, whatever its cause or goal, have grown. There are now barriers of conscience in the way of acquiring and maintaining power and using it to preserve the peace that would have been incomprehensible to the Greeks and Romans." (pg. 571)
"In a democratic country subject to the power of public opinion and organized groups that benefit from its largess, governments face increasing pressure to satisfy domestic demands at the expense of the requirements of defense." (pg. 572)
"The character and traditions of such societies, their lack of expansive ambitions, make them lomg for the closest approximation to their preferred policies of isolation that conditions will permit and sometimes beyond. In a country whose thinking and behavior are shaped by this combination of influences, proposals for the assumption of a continuing commitment to the active preservation of peace, not by resorting to disarmament, withdrawal, and disengagement, but by maintaining a strong military power and the willingness to use it when necessary, are certain to encounter strong opposition.
"Our studies suggest that such reactions and longings are futile, and the policies they suggest are dangerous. Whatever the preferences and intentions of such societies and their leaders, their power and their desire for international stability unavoidably place them in the path of dissatisfied states that want to revise the correlation of forces and power in their own favor. They are not free to stand clear . . . The free and spirited people of a still-powerful nation will not allow the world order to be torn up to its disadvantage and their security endangered, and they will reject any leadership prepared to do so. The only choices available to leaders of such a country is whether to seek to avoid the crisis by working to preserve the peace, to act realistically while there is time, or to avoid the responsibility until there is no choice but war." (pg. 573)
I was especially fascinated by the study of Otto von Bismark's creation and constant nurturing of a complicated series of European alliances throughout the 1800's that prevented any single country from becoming too powerful or becoming tempted to subjugate a weaker power. It was largely successful and seems to be the model for some of the lessons and themes of the book.
I also learned a lot more about the circumstances and series of mistakes after WWI that set the stage for WWII:
"The victorious nations in the First World War brought it to an end using language of idealistic generosity in which they did not really believe, creating utopian expectations whose inevitable collapse produced bitterness and cynicism, permitting complaints used to excuse irresponsible behavior of more than one kind. They vaguely put their hopes for peace in international organizations such as the League of Nations, though no nation abandoned any sovereignty and the League had no armed forces. When the United States failed to ratify the treaty, join the League, and give a guarantee of French security, the entire basis for preserving the peace in the face of a large, bitter, and largely intact Germany was undermined. The task of preserving the peace fell to France and Britain and, given France's many weaknesses, that meant chiefly Britain.
"British leaders in the years between the wars were powerfully impressed by what they took to be the lessons of the First World War. For them the Great War and the terrible destruction that came from it were caused not by German ambition abetted by British hesitation but by the arms race, the alliance system, and the willingness of Britain to commit a land army of significant size to a war on the Continent. British leaders easily were persuaded by the liberal and radical intellectuals of the day who rejected traditional ideas of power balances and military strength as the devices for keeping the peace. They were the products of the Enlightenment's belief in not merely technological but social progress, and whether or not they were Marxists, they gave great weight to economics as the most important element in international relations." (pg. 413)
There are important specific lessons to be learned from each of the five conflicts, but here are a few of the best excerpts from the conclusion about general themes and lessons:
"A persistent and repeated error through the ages has been the failure to understand that the preservation of peace requires active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice, just as war does. In the modern world especially the sense that peace is natural and war an aberration has led to a failure in peacetime to consider the possibility of another war, which, in turn, has prevented the efforts needed to preserve the peace." (pg. 567)
"Unexpected changes and shifts in power are the warp and woof of international history. . . [quoting Paul Kennedy] 'wealth and power, or economic strength and military strength are always relative, and since all societies are subject to the inexorable tendency to change, then the international balances can never be still, and it is a folly of statesmanship to assume that they ever could be.'" (pg. 568)
"The current condition of the world, therefore, where war among major powers is hard to conceive because one of them has overwhelming military superiority and no wish to expand, will not last" (pg. 568)
"[I]n a world of sovereign states a contest among them over the distribution of power is the normal condition and that such contests often lead to war. Another observation is that the reasons for seeking more power are often not merely the search for security or material advantage. Among them are demands for greater prestige, respect, deference, in short, honor. Since such demands involve judgments even more subjective that those about material advantage, they are still harder to satisfy. Other reasons emerge from fear, often unclear and intangible, not always of immediate threats but also of more distant one, against which reassurance may not be possible." (pg. 569)
"Statistically, war has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states. The cases we have examined indicate that good will, unilateral disarmament, the avoidance of alliances, teaching and preaching of the evils of war by those states who, generally satisfied with the state of the world, seek to preserve peace, are of no avail." (pg. 570)
"Modern states, especially those who have triumphed in the Cold War and have teh greatest interest in preserving peace, and most particularly the United States, on whom the main burden of keeping the peace must fall, now and in the foreseeable future, are quite different. The martial values and the respect for power have not entirely disappeared, but they. have been overlayed by other ideas and values, some of them unknown to the classical republics. . . Even as the power and influence of formal, organized religion have waned in the last century, the influence among important segments of the population in the United States and other Western countries of the rejection of power, the evil of pursuing self-interest, the wickedness of war, whatever its cause or goal, have grown. There are now barriers of conscience in the way of acquiring and maintaining power and using it to preserve the peace that would have been incomprehensible to the Greeks and Romans." (pg. 571)
"In a democratic country subject to the power of public opinion and organized groups that benefit from its largess, governments face increasing pressure to satisfy domestic demands at the expense of the requirements of defense." (pg. 572)
"The character and traditions of such societies, their lack of expansive ambitions, make them lomg for the closest approximation to their preferred policies of isolation that conditions will permit and sometimes beyond. In a country whose thinking and behavior are shaped by this combination of influences, proposals for the assumption of a continuing commitment to the active preservation of peace, not by resorting to disarmament, withdrawal, and disengagement, but by maintaining a strong military power and the willingness to use it when necessary, are certain to encounter strong opposition.
"Our studies suggest that such reactions and longings are futile, and the policies they suggest are dangerous. Whatever the preferences and intentions of such societies and their leaders, their power and their desire for international stability unavoidably place them in the path of dissatisfied states that want to revise the correlation of forces and power in their own favor. They are not free to stand clear . . . The free and spirited people of a still-powerful nation will not allow the world order to be torn up to its disadvantage and their security endangered, and they will reject any leadership prepared to do so. The only choices available to leaders of such a country is whether to seek to avoid the crisis by working to preserve the peace, to act realistically while there is time, or to avoid the responsibility until there is no choice but war." (pg. 573)
December 12, 2024
Just a really solid historical book.
It's a bit tough to get through some of the contexts Kagan presents here, but in the end it is DEFINITELY worthwhile. He has quite a few takes that I highly disagreed with at first due to their shocking nature, but by then end my view of the interplay between peace and war was thoroughly changed.
It's a bit tough to get through some of the contexts Kagan presents here, but in the end it is DEFINITELY worthwhile. He has quite a few takes that I highly disagreed with at first due to their shocking nature, but by then end my view of the interplay between peace and war was thoroughly changed.
July 19, 2024
Great overview of the origins of war from the 5th century to the beginning of the Cold War, keeps you engaged throughout and has incredible insights on the nature and relationship of states in international systems.
http://www.fatdogreads.com/reviews/On...
http://www.fatdogreads.com/reviews/On...
October 10, 2019
Dense asf
December 2, 2023
In the words of Dr. Schlect, its a bit like a cheesecake...dense and delicious, but sickening it you try to it the whole thing at once.
October 12, 2015
Some Thoughts on Donald Kagan’s
On the Origins of War
and the Preservation of Peace
By Greg Cusack
October 12, 2015
I came across this intriguing study through favorable comments by other authors. Although originally published in 1995, Dr. Kagan’s observations remain insightful and uniquely timely for our own times in which so many who aspire to national leadership invoke the enduring myths of “surgical military strikes” that will “excise” the particular cancer of the day.
This is history as assessed by wisdom (untarnished by ideology), and I recommend it to all who ponder humanity’s seemingly unstoppable drive to engage in self-destruction. He has chosen four wars (the Peloponnesian, the Punic, and the First and Second World Wars) and one near-war (the Cuban missile crisis) to examine in detail, probing into exactly how these wars began, what efforts were made to avoid coming to conflict, and the critical role that misreading an opponent’s mindset or actions has in sparking violence.
While I do not intend these comments to be a comprehensive review of Kagan’s book, I want to highlight a couple of major impressions that I have taken away from reading it that I believe are most relevant for our own troubled times.
The fatal mischief small states – or small conflicts – often have in initiating major wars
Dr. Kagan often cites a similar experience from another period when discussing another conflict as, for example, when he noted the similarity between the way some city-states such as Thebes, Megara, and Corinth were able to leverage their importance (and their respective grievances) when tensions were at their height between Sparta and Athens and, much closer to our own time, the way smaller nations during the time of the Cold War were able to successfully gain military and other supplies from the West or the Soviet Union. In fact, it was just such machinations 2,500 years ago that caused Athens and Sparta to stumble into a costly war that neither of them wanted and that both of them worked very hard to avoid.
This lesson should cause us to take special note of the way many East Asian nations, for example, might be skillfully playing the United States off against China in order to assert their territorial positions. While Americans do not accept every claim that China makes as automatically factually correct or “true,” we should also be alert to the obverse – that not every counter-claim made against the Chinese position is necessarily correct, either.
The difficulty of knowing the “other’s” motives, ambitions, or concerns
This basic problem is a theme in all the incidents Dr. Kagan investigates. Sometimes, as with Kaiser Wilhelm’s egocentric determination to “restore” Germany’s greatness in the years leading up to the Great War, the problem is magnified by persons who do not really care to understand where their opponent stands – or, equally problematic, to question one’s assumptions about what their beliefs are – but there are other times, as with Kennedy and Khrushchev, when sincere efforts to understand nonetheless miss the mark.
Kennedy, despite his frequent use of Cold War rhetoric – as, for instance, in his inaugural address – was sincere in trying to avoid with the Soviet Union. Like FDR before him, he understood that it was imperative for the Soviet Union to have “friendly states” on its western borders. While he distrusted those who preached that the time to “cripple” the Soviet Union was now before it acquired anything nearing nuclear parity with the United States, he abhorred the very idea of a nuclear exchange and hoped to early establish a “reset” with the Soviet Union that would lead to a relaxation in tensions between the Cold War adversaries. As he regarded the divided city of Berlin to be the most likely flashpoint, he sought an early meeting with Soviet Premier Khrushchev in order to achieve this mutual understanding.
For his part, Mr. Khrushchev – unlike Kennedy who had been born into a wealthy family – had had to scrap all his life in order to survive and then rise through the communist ranks. He had a visceral distaste for capitalism, saw the United States as its chief exporter, and knew of past American attempts to destabilize the Soviet Union. As he watched anti-colonial developments throughout South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, he firmly believed that time was on the Soviet Union’s side and that she was on the side of the future.
Tactically, he was a bit of a gambler. Just as he had learned to thrust and parry in rising through communist party ranks, so also did he engage in foreign affairs. Every time he had the opportunity to “pry away” one nation from “the West” or, at the least, to insert Soviet influence into that region, he sought to take advantage of it. One by one, he believed he could gradually eliminate America’s encirclement of the Soviet Union from the South and in the Middle East while holding fast to the Soviet Union’s satellite states in the West. He regarded Kennedy’s hopes for “accommodation” as a sign of weakness, perhaps reflecting JFK’s tenuous domestic situation (Kennedy had been elected in one of the tightest races in U.S. history and faced almost solid opposition from the American South).
When JFK hesitatingly unleashed the Cuban invasion of 1961 – the “Bay of Pigs” fiasco – and then refused to commit sufficient American airpower to ensure its success, Khrushchev saw this failure as proof that the young American president was all talk and bluff, but unable – or unwilling – to follow through.
When Kennedy finally met Khrushchev in Vienna in the summer of ’61, his offers to seek a new understanding were mocked by a bullying Khrushchev who had determined that Kennedy “could be had” by such behavior.
This background is important toward understanding the development of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Khrushchev was clearly not trying to start a war; rather, because of his reading of Kennedy’s previous behavior, he felt that the successful (and hoped for secret) insertion of Soviet medium range, nuclear capable ballistic missiles would be accepted by Kennedy as a fait accompli to which JFK would do nothing! This would not only present the Soviet Union with a tremendous propaganda victory, but also subject the United States to a taste of its own medicine: it would now have threatening weapons nearby pointed at its heart just as the Soviet Union faced land-based NATO missiles in Italy and Turkey aimed at its territory.
Unfortunately for Mr. Khrushchev, this was one gambit too far. In fact, it was JFK’s very domestic vulnerability that was a powerful force against his acquiescing. Furthermore, the strategic implications were impossible to ignore. At this relatively early date in the Cold War, America had an overwhelming advantage in nuclear weapons, possessing several thousands (distributed among land-based missiles, those aloft in Strategic Air Command bombers, and those within submerged Polaris submarines at sea) as contrasted with perhaps a total of 30 for the Soviet Union. Allowing medium range ballistic missiles to become operational in Cuba would, thus, subject the American homeland to a vastly expanded risk of nuclear damage.
When JFK did act – by imposing a “quarantine” (really, a naval blockade) against any further importation of missiles and by demanding the dismantlement of those already in Cuba – his sudden firmness shocked Khrushchev with the possible consequence of a nuclear exchange he had never desired.
Those who would be president of the United States
Which of the sadly inept and ignorant current candidates for the presidency, do you think, would possibly be in a position to act wisely when dealing with a man like Khrushchev or, for that matter, President Putin or President Xi? These candidates seem to be so full of themselves, and so certain of what they do not know.
Dr. Kagan’s thoughtful work suggests that these are not the kind of leaders who will be able to keep us out of war and preserve the peace. This takes persons who are wiser, humbler, and more curious about others. Can we find such a man or woman in time?
On the Origins of War
and the Preservation of Peace
By Greg Cusack
October 12, 2015
I came across this intriguing study through favorable comments by other authors. Although originally published in 1995, Dr. Kagan’s observations remain insightful and uniquely timely for our own times in which so many who aspire to national leadership invoke the enduring myths of “surgical military strikes” that will “excise” the particular cancer of the day.
This is history as assessed by wisdom (untarnished by ideology), and I recommend it to all who ponder humanity’s seemingly unstoppable drive to engage in self-destruction. He has chosen four wars (the Peloponnesian, the Punic, and the First and Second World Wars) and one near-war (the Cuban missile crisis) to examine in detail, probing into exactly how these wars began, what efforts were made to avoid coming to conflict, and the critical role that misreading an opponent’s mindset or actions has in sparking violence.
While I do not intend these comments to be a comprehensive review of Kagan’s book, I want to highlight a couple of major impressions that I have taken away from reading it that I believe are most relevant for our own troubled times.
The fatal mischief small states – or small conflicts – often have in initiating major wars
Dr. Kagan often cites a similar experience from another period when discussing another conflict as, for example, when he noted the similarity between the way some city-states such as Thebes, Megara, and Corinth were able to leverage their importance (and their respective grievances) when tensions were at their height between Sparta and Athens and, much closer to our own time, the way smaller nations during the time of the Cold War were able to successfully gain military and other supplies from the West or the Soviet Union. In fact, it was just such machinations 2,500 years ago that caused Athens and Sparta to stumble into a costly war that neither of them wanted and that both of them worked very hard to avoid.
This lesson should cause us to take special note of the way many East Asian nations, for example, might be skillfully playing the United States off against China in order to assert their territorial positions. While Americans do not accept every claim that China makes as automatically factually correct or “true,” we should also be alert to the obverse – that not every counter-claim made against the Chinese position is necessarily correct, either.
The difficulty of knowing the “other’s” motives, ambitions, or concerns
This basic problem is a theme in all the incidents Dr. Kagan investigates. Sometimes, as with Kaiser Wilhelm’s egocentric determination to “restore” Germany’s greatness in the years leading up to the Great War, the problem is magnified by persons who do not really care to understand where their opponent stands – or, equally problematic, to question one’s assumptions about what their beliefs are – but there are other times, as with Kennedy and Khrushchev, when sincere efforts to understand nonetheless miss the mark.
Kennedy, despite his frequent use of Cold War rhetoric – as, for instance, in his inaugural address – was sincere in trying to avoid with the Soviet Union. Like FDR before him, he understood that it was imperative for the Soviet Union to have “friendly states” on its western borders. While he distrusted those who preached that the time to “cripple” the Soviet Union was now before it acquired anything nearing nuclear parity with the United States, he abhorred the very idea of a nuclear exchange and hoped to early establish a “reset” with the Soviet Union that would lead to a relaxation in tensions between the Cold War adversaries. As he regarded the divided city of Berlin to be the most likely flashpoint, he sought an early meeting with Soviet Premier Khrushchev in order to achieve this mutual understanding.
For his part, Mr. Khrushchev – unlike Kennedy who had been born into a wealthy family – had had to scrap all his life in order to survive and then rise through the communist ranks. He had a visceral distaste for capitalism, saw the United States as its chief exporter, and knew of past American attempts to destabilize the Soviet Union. As he watched anti-colonial developments throughout South America, Africa, and Southeast Asia, he firmly believed that time was on the Soviet Union’s side and that she was on the side of the future.
Tactically, he was a bit of a gambler. Just as he had learned to thrust and parry in rising through communist party ranks, so also did he engage in foreign affairs. Every time he had the opportunity to “pry away” one nation from “the West” or, at the least, to insert Soviet influence into that region, he sought to take advantage of it. One by one, he believed he could gradually eliminate America’s encirclement of the Soviet Union from the South and in the Middle East while holding fast to the Soviet Union’s satellite states in the West. He regarded Kennedy’s hopes for “accommodation” as a sign of weakness, perhaps reflecting JFK’s tenuous domestic situation (Kennedy had been elected in one of the tightest races in U.S. history and faced almost solid opposition from the American South).
When JFK hesitatingly unleashed the Cuban invasion of 1961 – the “Bay of Pigs” fiasco – and then refused to commit sufficient American airpower to ensure its success, Khrushchev saw this failure as proof that the young American president was all talk and bluff, but unable – or unwilling – to follow through.
When Kennedy finally met Khrushchev in Vienna in the summer of ’61, his offers to seek a new understanding were mocked by a bullying Khrushchev who had determined that Kennedy “could be had” by such behavior.
This background is important toward understanding the development of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Khrushchev was clearly not trying to start a war; rather, because of his reading of Kennedy’s previous behavior, he felt that the successful (and hoped for secret) insertion of Soviet medium range, nuclear capable ballistic missiles would be accepted by Kennedy as a fait accompli to which JFK would do nothing! This would not only present the Soviet Union with a tremendous propaganda victory, but also subject the United States to a taste of its own medicine: it would now have threatening weapons nearby pointed at its heart just as the Soviet Union faced land-based NATO missiles in Italy and Turkey aimed at its territory.
Unfortunately for Mr. Khrushchev, this was one gambit too far. In fact, it was JFK’s very domestic vulnerability that was a powerful force against his acquiescing. Furthermore, the strategic implications were impossible to ignore. At this relatively early date in the Cold War, America had an overwhelming advantage in nuclear weapons, possessing several thousands (distributed among land-based missiles, those aloft in Strategic Air Command bombers, and those within submerged Polaris submarines at sea) as contrasted with perhaps a total of 30 for the Soviet Union. Allowing medium range ballistic missiles to become operational in Cuba would, thus, subject the American homeland to a vastly expanded risk of nuclear damage.
When JFK did act – by imposing a “quarantine” (really, a naval blockade) against any further importation of missiles and by demanding the dismantlement of those already in Cuba – his sudden firmness shocked Khrushchev with the possible consequence of a nuclear exchange he had never desired.
Those who would be president of the United States
Which of the sadly inept and ignorant current candidates for the presidency, do you think, would possibly be in a position to act wisely when dealing with a man like Khrushchev or, for that matter, President Putin or President Xi? These candidates seem to be so full of themselves, and so certain of what they do not know.
Dr. Kagan’s thoughtful work suggests that these are not the kind of leaders who will be able to keep us out of war and preserve the peace. This takes persons who are wiser, humbler, and more curious about others. Can we find such a man or woman in time?
January 18, 2024
This book probably deserves a 5 star, but I'm not sure I'm qualified to give it. In other words, this technical exploration was at times well over my head. I mean that in the best possible way, this is definitely a book I will read again, hopefully with more knowledge to bring to it. I don't want to give the impression that the book was inaccessible, rather, it was very readable, and I found it easy to breeze through 50 or 100 pages at a time. The Late Donald Kagan remains a highly acknowledged and reputable scholar and historian. Reading his work is, I imagine, rather like playing amateur tennis against a professional. You definitely won't win, and you probably won't even understand everything that happens, but it will be fun. and you'll learn a lot.
On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace is not, like I initially assumed, a study of how violence grew and became an organized craft among humans. What it is, is a careful study of five major conflicts, four of which resulted in war, and how these conflicts arose. Starting with the Peloponnesian war, then World War One, The Second Punic War, World War Two, and The Cuban Missile Crisis, Kagan studies each carefully.
Working from the Thucydidian observation that people go to war for three reasons, Fear, Honor, and Interest, Kagan uses this dark perspective of conflict to analyze human decisions in the face of conflict.
At the center of this work is Kagan's conviction, like Thucydides, that violence is the natural state of humans and human society, and peace is the desirable interlude that should be relentlessly pursued. This by no means makes him a warmonger. Kagan believes that most wars are unnecessary, and result from diplomats and leaders who don't fully understand or pursue the cost, and responsibility of peace.
The other value of this book, and what first brought me to be fascinated by Donald Kagan a few years ago, is his deep knowledge of the waves of historical consensus, and the effects this has. In his analysis, Kagan brings his readers through the evolution of historians interpretations, across decades or even centuries. With a wealth of citations and quotations showing how historians or even schools of historians understood past events, his writings have a certain epistemological element to them I find fascinating. Along with this lucid reading of the readings, Kagan shows how these readings further affected history. For example, how President Kennedy's pre WWII education at then revisionist Harvard on the origins of the first World War gave him a "Gun's of August" style understanding of accidental war, which led him to interpret his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev as an opportunity to avoid "miscalculations" on both sides. This, to the ever gambling and opportunistic Soviet, looked a lot like pandering, and helped influence his decision to poke America via Cuba, and see what could be gained.
This book is gold to anyone interested in the methods of history, anyone interested in what war is and what makes it happen, or anyone trying to better understand world events, and modern geopolitics.
edit. ok after writing that I decided I definitely give this 5 stars, even if I'm unqualified to do so.
On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace is not, like I initially assumed, a study of how violence grew and became an organized craft among humans. What it is, is a careful study of five major conflicts, four of which resulted in war, and how these conflicts arose. Starting with the Peloponnesian war, then World War One, The Second Punic War, World War Two, and The Cuban Missile Crisis, Kagan studies each carefully.
Working from the Thucydidian observation that people go to war for three reasons, Fear, Honor, and Interest, Kagan uses this dark perspective of conflict to analyze human decisions in the face of conflict.
At the center of this work is Kagan's conviction, like Thucydides, that violence is the natural state of humans and human society, and peace is the desirable interlude that should be relentlessly pursued. This by no means makes him a warmonger. Kagan believes that most wars are unnecessary, and result from diplomats and leaders who don't fully understand or pursue the cost, and responsibility of peace.
The other value of this book, and what first brought me to be fascinated by Donald Kagan a few years ago, is his deep knowledge of the waves of historical consensus, and the effects this has. In his analysis, Kagan brings his readers through the evolution of historians interpretations, across decades or even centuries. With a wealth of citations and quotations showing how historians or even schools of historians understood past events, his writings have a certain epistemological element to them I find fascinating. Along with this lucid reading of the readings, Kagan shows how these readings further affected history. For example, how President Kennedy's pre WWII education at then revisionist Harvard on the origins of the first World War gave him a "Gun's of August" style understanding of accidental war, which led him to interpret his Vienna meeting with Khrushchev as an opportunity to avoid "miscalculations" on both sides. This, to the ever gambling and opportunistic Soviet, looked a lot like pandering, and helped influence his decision to poke America via Cuba, and see what could be gained.
This book is gold to anyone interested in the methods of history, anyone interested in what war is and what makes it happen, or anyone trying to better understand world events, and modern geopolitics.
edit. ok after writing that I decided I definitely give this 5 stars, even if I'm unqualified to do so.
March 28, 2023
William Shakespeare wrote, "War gives the right to the conquerors to impose any condition they please upon the vanquished." And from this point, Kagan begins his study. He argues that the free state of existence of humanity/world/states is not peace, not harmony yet war:
"That apart from education the chief course advised to maintain peace is restraint: the avoidance of actions that will destroy peace that is the natural order of things. The evidence provided by the experience of human beings living in organized societies for more than five millennia suggests otherwise. Statistically, war has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states. The cases we have examined indicate good will, unilateral disarmament, the avoidance of alliances, teaching and preaching of the evils of war by those states who, generally, satisfied with the state of the world, seek to preserve peace, are of no avail. What seems to work best, even though imperfectly, is the possession by those states who wish to preserve peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose."
It is the dilemma of war and peace. The struggle of the humanity to abide the better angels of nature.
This is an excellent and exemplary read. A fine wine, not to be devoured but savored and mulled, perhaps only tasted, spit out and another sip needed. Before we retire, on last passage to consider. A moving one, a poignant one. Kagan writing on how British contemporaries hailed PM Chamberlain's achievement of appeasement by getting Hitler to promise not to invade Czechoslovakia or any other part of Europe:
"If the motives alleged were the only ones at work we should nonetheless need to point out that Munich was also the triumph of an unrealistic muddle-headedness that based its idea of justice on a gross misreading of history and its notion of safety on the promises of a demonic and ruthless leader of a brutal totalitarian regime whose writings, speeches, and actions over a decade and a half showed the he [Hitler] had no intention of keeping them [promises not to invade]. It is also hard to find nobility in a policy that sought peace at the expense of a small and weak nation (Czechoslovakia) that had put its trust in the nations who threw it to the very ferocious wolves to preserve, so they thought, their own safety."
"That apart from education the chief course advised to maintain peace is restraint: the avoidance of actions that will destroy peace that is the natural order of things. The evidence provided by the experience of human beings living in organized societies for more than five millennia suggests otherwise. Statistically, war has been more common than peace, and extended periods of peace have been rare in a world divided into multiple states. The cases we have examined indicate good will, unilateral disarmament, the avoidance of alliances, teaching and preaching of the evils of war by those states who, generally, satisfied with the state of the world, seek to preserve peace, are of no avail. What seems to work best, even though imperfectly, is the possession by those states who wish to preserve peace of the preponderant power and of the will to accept the burdens and responsibilities required to achieve that purpose."
It is the dilemma of war and peace. The struggle of the humanity to abide the better angels of nature.
This is an excellent and exemplary read. A fine wine, not to be devoured but savored and mulled, perhaps only tasted, spit out and another sip needed. Before we retire, on last passage to consider. A moving one, a poignant one. Kagan writing on how British contemporaries hailed PM Chamberlain's achievement of appeasement by getting Hitler to promise not to invade Czechoslovakia or any other part of Europe:
"If the motives alleged were the only ones at work we should nonetheless need to point out that Munich was also the triumph of an unrealistic muddle-headedness that based its idea of justice on a gross misreading of history and its notion of safety on the promises of a demonic and ruthless leader of a brutal totalitarian regime whose writings, speeches, and actions over a decade and a half showed the he [Hitler] had no intention of keeping them [promises not to invade]. It is also hard to find nobility in a policy that sought peace at the expense of a small and weak nation (Czechoslovakia) that had put its trust in the nations who threw it to the very ferocious wolves to preserve, so they thought, their own safety."
May 27, 2020
The book was engaging and insightful overall. Its main drawback is that it focuses on a particular kind of war--the grand, "total" wars of yesteryear--and not on the smaller-scale, revolutionary or religious insurgencies that are more common today. That doesn't mean the book is without value: one of the key points of the book is that peace is never guaranteed and there is nothing but our persistent efforts that could prevent a nuclear World War III. However, its applicability is a little difficult since Kagan's implied suggestions of having credible force and will in the realm of diplomacy do not translate readily to peace in "low-intensity" conflicts like with the Intifadas or FARC. The Thucydidean triad of honor, fear, and interest seem to hold true, but act differently in the case of non-total wars involving possibly non-state actors. This book is at its most rewarding when its lines of inquiry are compared to current "grand diplomacy" issues like the US-China standoff; Kagan's ideas must be understood in that context.
Kagan also pushes the largest portion of the blame for World War I by far on Germany, though jingoism was rife among the Allied powers as well. Germany definitely had its part in the lead-up to the war but I don't think Kagan attributes enough space to excoriating the Allies for their part in accelerating the development of the rival blocs and addressing real fears of Einkreisung (even if that situation was self-imposed to an extent). One also wonders if the complicated, web-like system of treaties so adroitly wielded by Bismarck was doomed to fail once he was no longer at the helm. Was that peace really kept because Germany was willing to play the role of peacekeeper, or would a similar will without the unique genius of a Bismarck have ended in conflagration as well?
I found his explanation of the Peloponnesian, Punic, and Second World Wars more convincing and riveting. His treatment of Kennedy seemed unduly harsh, especially when you consider that this was essentially the first conflict involving the threat of nuclear destruction. On balance, I'm glad Kennedy erred on the side of weakness. I'm sure Kagan would have preferred that Kennedy "won" the confrontation, but given the stakes involved I find it hard to fault Kennedy for consistently choosing placatory maneuvers instead of ratcheting tensions and rattling missiles.
Kagan also pushes the largest portion of the blame for World War I by far on Germany, though jingoism was rife among the Allied powers as well. Germany definitely had its part in the lead-up to the war but I don't think Kagan attributes enough space to excoriating the Allies for their part in accelerating the development of the rival blocs and addressing real fears of Einkreisung (even if that situation was self-imposed to an extent). One also wonders if the complicated, web-like system of treaties so adroitly wielded by Bismarck was doomed to fail once he was no longer at the helm. Was that peace really kept because Germany was willing to play the role of peacekeeper, or would a similar will without the unique genius of a Bismarck have ended in conflagration as well?
I found his explanation of the Peloponnesian, Punic, and Second World Wars more convincing and riveting. His treatment of Kennedy seemed unduly harsh, especially when you consider that this was essentially the first conflict involving the threat of nuclear destruction. On balance, I'm glad Kennedy erred on the side of weakness. I'm sure Kagan would have preferred that Kennedy "won" the confrontation, but given the stakes involved I find it hard to fault Kennedy for consistently choosing placatory maneuvers instead of ratcheting tensions and rattling missiles.
January 16, 2024
While this looks like a normal sized book, reading it is a mammoth task. Kagan's professionalism and scholarly occupation gets the better of him here, producing some dry reading, especially in the chapters dealing with WWI, WWII, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. His chapters on the Peloponnesian War and the Second Punic War were much more manageable and interesting to me-- perhaps because of the lack of sources and detail, allowing one to more quickly get a handle on the subject.
However, I can definitely affirm that I am more knowledgeable on all of the topics he touched on for having read this book. For all my misgivings about the dry reading, I'm not really sure how Kagan could have included everything he needed to for a close analysis without it being a bit of a slog. And, for all that, his thesis keeps the book afloat and his unyielding grasping for the mystery of the origin of war really raise this book in quality.
Peace is not a negative virtue, that is, one that exists without effort or upkeep. In fact, it is only through hard work, dispassionate observation, and the proactive use of power and responsibility that peace is produced at all. This is perhaps the opposite view of what many people think today, which is that peace is the natural state of things, and that war is only caused by an active attempt to upset the status quo.
However, I can definitely affirm that I am more knowledgeable on all of the topics he touched on for having read this book. For all my misgivings about the dry reading, I'm not really sure how Kagan could have included everything he needed to for a close analysis without it being a bit of a slog. And, for all that, his thesis keeps the book afloat and his unyielding grasping for the mystery of the origin of war really raise this book in quality.
Peace is not a negative virtue, that is, one that exists without effort or upkeep. In fact, it is only through hard work, dispassionate observation, and the proactive use of power and responsibility that peace is produced at all. This is perhaps the opposite view of what many people think today, which is that peace is the natural state of things, and that war is only caused by an active attempt to upset the status quo.
January 31, 2020
This was a fascinating read. Kagan explores the lead-up and causes of 5 historical conflicts, including WWI, WWII, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Using public historical records, diaries, etc. Kagan does a great job of explaining the motivations for all of the powers involved in each conflict and where and how different decisions could have avoided the eventual war. As Kagan notes, peace is not a natural state. It takes a lot of work and resources to keep peace, even if it doesn’t seem like war is possible.
December 30, 2022
I read this for school, so it was at a pace about twice as fast I would have liked. Kagan is thorough in each of his case studies, and approaches complex situations with nuance. I had only basic knowledge of the cause of the World Wars before reading this, and Kagan left me wanting to know more. He's definitely long winded, but I think the subject matter justifies the length. Really excellent and not in your face treatment of political realism, and great historical method.
June 26, 2025
This is a hardcore history book, not for the fainthearted! The author dives deep into five specific wars/crises and leaves no stone unturned with regards to the origins of each, going back, at times, up to a 100 years! While not a fast read, thoroughly enjoyable and organized. It still holds up today, over 30 years since publication. Highly recommended for any history reader or person interested in why wars happen.
February 6, 2019
My 1 takeaway quote:
"The preservation of peace requires active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice, just as war does... the sense that peace is natural and war an aberration has led to a failure in peacetime to consider the possibility of another war, which in turn, has prevented the efforts needed to preserve peace."
- Kagan
"The preservation of peace requires active effort, planning, the expenditure of resources, and sacrifice, just as war does... the sense that peace is natural and war an aberration has led to a failure in peacetime to consider the possibility of another war, which in turn, has prevented the efforts needed to preserve peace."
- Kagan
July 9, 2018
An excellent read. Reading this book will the change the way one thinks about the strategic and tactical approaches to politics and diplomacy in international relations.
June 16, 2022
This book examines 5 case studies throughout the age, to prove tha
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January 5, 2024I only read the 150 pages on WW1, but I have a much better understanding of all the facets of the lead up to war now. Very thorough. WW1 makes a lot more sense in terms of what actually caused it
May 26, 2024
Decent overview of the theory of warfare: Honor, Fear, and Interest. Spent most of pacing on the examples, would’ve liked more on the theory specifically
February 18, 2017
Rather than write a completely new review of Donald Kagan’s The Origins of War, I’ve decided to respond to some of the best insights from reviews published on the web and on goodreads as well as to discuss a few of my favorite points in the book.
December 21, 2011
Kagan's conspectus is human warfare, his goal its end. It's a noble purpose, and I think he does well in portraying the leading men in each conflict and what they could have done to avert war.
"The means for keeping the peace were not lacking, only the understanding and the will" is his conclusion to more than one chapter. I think it's interesting that many of the men (Bismarck, Pericles, Gray, Chamberlain) wanted to avoid war at almost any cost, and sometimes their opponents did too. But since they went about keeping the peace in the wrong way, they failed. It's a sad commentary on human nature, but it makes for incisive analysis and overall a great read.
"The means for keeping the peace were not lacking, only the understanding and the will" is his conclusion to more than one chapter. I think it's interesting that many of the men (Bismarck, Pericles, Gray, Chamberlain) wanted to avoid war at almost any cost, and sometimes their opponents did too. But since they went about keeping the peace in the wrong way, they failed. It's a sad commentary on human nature, but it makes for incisive analysis and overall a great read.
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