• The first general theme that compels attention is that no nation that began a major war in this century emerged a winner.



• With regard to the problem of the outbreak of war, the case studies indicate the crucial importance of the personalities of leaders.



• The case materials reveals that perhaps the most important single precipitating factor in the outbreak of war is misperception. Such distortion may manifest itself in four different ways: in a leader's image of himself; a leader's view of his adversary's character; a leader's view of his adversary's intentions toward himself; and finally, a leader's view of his adversary's capabilities and power.



• There is a remarkable consistency in the self-images of most national leaders on the brink of war. Each confidently expects victory after a brief and triumphant campaign.



• This common belief in a short, decisive war is usually the overflow from a reservoir of self-delusions held by the leadership about both itself and the nation.



• Distorted views of the adversary's character also help to precipitate a conflict.



• When a leader on the brink of war believe that his adversary will attack him, the chances of war are fairly high. When both leaders share the perception about each other's intent, war become a virtual certainty.



• A leader's misperception of his adversary's power is perhaps the quintessential cause of war. It is vital to remember, however, that it is not the actual distribution of power that precipitates a war, it is the way in which a leader thinks that power is distributed.



• Thus, on the eve of each war, at least one nation misperceives another's power. In that sense the beginning of each war is a misperception or an accident. The war itself then slowly, and in agony, teaches the lesson of reality.

One comment I'd make is that Stoessinger's data set is necessarily limited in certain ways. For instance, he's not able to fully analyze the thoughts and actions of the leaders of closed societies, because that information is not available to him. Thus his analysis of why Stalin ignored the clear and specific (and accurate) warnings he received about Hitler's forthcoming attack is mostly speculative. Similarly, he can only speculate about why the North Koreans (or the Soviets using them as proxies) invaded South Korea, and his primary analysis in the case study therefore concerns the United States' response to the attack. Given that our current government is the most secretive and closed-off we've seen since World War II, it's difficult to apply Stoessinger's conclusions to the actions of the Bush Admnistration in invading Iraq and in their current (quite obvious) search for a casus belli to justify their long-held desire to attack Iran.

One other thing -- it's quite clear from the Administration's recent actions that, contrary to one of Stoessinger's points, Bush and Cheney have learned absolutely nothing from this war as it's progressed [sic] so far; instead, it's the American people, who began by mistakenly being supportive of Bush's invasion, who have learned those difficult lessons.

Still, I certainly agree with Stoessinger that the personality of the leaders is a primary determining factor: although it's hard to be sure, because much of what they've done really makes very little sense, the war is Iraq seems to ultimately be the result of Cheney's authoritarianism and Bush's many weaknesses being worked on by the fantasies of the neo-cons.

* The material I've quoted is from the Seventh Edition of the book. For the current edition, the Ninth, three other studies are apparently included, according to a customer review on Amazon.com: the wars between India & Pakistan, the war in Afghanistan & the American-Iraqi war. I'm unsure if the last refers to the current war or the Persian Gulf war, but I assume the former, and I would be very interested in getting hold of it to see how Stoessinger breaks down the cause(s) of Bush's war.

Addendum: I haven't been able to find anyplace where he spells out his thoughts about the current state of the Iraq War in more detail, but his speakers bureau listing says: "Dr. Stoessinger believes that history points to an honorable exit strategy from Iraq, whereby the United States would depart with a sense of accomplishment." That seems pretty damned optimistic to me.