Changing Face of War Lessons of Combat, from the Marne to Iraq

1 Prelude, 1900-14 1.1. States, Armies, and Navies Around 1900, the idea that the only possible threat to a "Great Power" could come from another "Great Power" was taken very much for granted. Indeed, nowhere in the voluminous strategic literature of the period is any other possibility so much as hinted at. Depending on whether or not one included Italy, the number of Great Powers was either seven or eight. Of them, no fewer than six (or seven) were populated almost entirely by Christian people of Caucasian stock--an extraordinary fact, considering that such people formed a small percentage of the world's population. Even more extraordinary, of the seven (or eight) Great Powers in question, four (or five) were located in just one, rather small, continent by the name of Europe. Another, Russia, had its main basis firmly rooted in that continent even though it also stretched all the way across Asia to the Pacific. Only two of the powers, the United States and Japan, were geographically separated from the "old" continent. However, even those two owed their strength either to the fact that their population was of Caucasian stock or to their successful adaptation of European ideas, methods, and techniques. The product of a series of exceptionally fortunate circumstances,1 built up over the course of centuries, this tremendous concentration of military might enabled its owners to share almost the entire world among themselves. From about ad 1500 on, it was Europe that established colonies abroad, not the other way around. European ships were fully rigged and carried row upon row of cannon. Captained by the likes of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and their followers, they reached the four corners of the earth. Wherever they met opposition they shot it to pieces; meanwhile, non-Europeans were able to reach Europe, if at all, only as licensed curiosities.2 In addition to Latin America, the only non-European countries that succeeded in staying independent were China, Thailand, Ethiopia, Liberia, the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Afghanistan. The main reason why they did so was not their own strength but because the powers, while unable to agree on how to carve them up, did not want to go to war over them. Some were formally designated as buffer zones. Thus, Iran in 1907 was cut into three "zones of influence": a Russian one in the north, a British one in the south, and a common one in the center. In other cases, the independence in question was more apparent than real. As so often happens, political power rested on an equally impressive accumulation of economic muscle. The Industrial Revolution had started in Britain during the second half of the eighteenth century. From there, it spread to the Continent; as of the beginning of the twentieth century, however, with the exception of the United States and Japan it had scarcely yet touched the other parts of the globe. Until 1750, according to the best available calculations, about three-quarters of all the world's manufacturing output had been concentrated in what, today, we would call the third world (Africa and Asia minus Russia and Japan). From this point, the share underwent a steady decline until, in 1900, it stood at a mere 12 percent. Conversely, by that time, Europe, the United States, and Japan together accounted for no less than 88 percent of world manufacturing output. In terms of per capita industrialization, the gap between the self-styled "civilized" and "primitive" countries was much greater still. In 1914, on the eve of the Great War, the largest economic power was already the United States, with a population of 98 million and a national income of $37 billion. It was followed by Germany (65 million and $12 billion, respectively), Great Britain (45 and $11), Russia (171 and $7), France (39 and $6), Austria-Hungary (52 and $3), Italy (37 and $4), and Japan (5Van Crevald, Martin L. is the author of 'Changing Face of War Lessons of Combat, from the Marne to Iraq', published 2007 under ISBN 9780891419013 and ISBN 0891419012.