ABSTRACT

The historic case of World War I has been the main battleground for rival theories of power shifts and war. Scholars claim that their preferred theory can offer a compelling – if not superior – explanation for the war’s origins. In this chapter, I join the high-stakes battle and see how well my theory fares in accounting for the monumental event. For this purpose, I trace how the German maneuver strategy called “the Schlieffen Plan” shaped the declining German state’s preventive motive and the opportunities for diplomacy and war vis-à-vis Russia in particular. I also examine how these intervening phenomena in turn led to war in the summer of 1914. This analysis pairs up nicely with that of the earlier peaceful shifts in power presented in the previous chapter: two rivals – Germany and Russia – experienced two major power shifts consecutively in four decades but avoided a war in one occasion and fought a war in the other. These contrasting outcomes constitute an interesting puzzle. This chapter also reevaluates empirical supports for alternative accounts that the competing theories offer to the case of World War I.