Geoffrey Blainey的《战争的缘由》（The Causes of War）确实是值得一读的好书。五角大楼一位最具思想性的人士向我推荐了这本书，尽管它并不是新书，但仍应是对国际关系感兴趣的读者最应读的书之一。Blainey用书名开门见山地表明，本书探讨的是：战争为何会发生。他引用了Clausewitz的话，其大意是在人类所有的活动中，战争与赌博最为相似，而Blainey的论述明显具备博弈论的特征。
Blainey认为，对相对实力的评估决定了战争与和平的决策。当一国对自己的相对实力产生误判时，战争就会发生。他写道：“战争通常是难以化解的外交危机的结果。而外交危机之所以难以化解，是因为双方对各自谈判力量的估测有矛盾。”如果双方力量有明显差别，则围绕国家利益的争端可以通过谈判解决——力量较弱的一方会妥协以防止战争发生。如果力量较弱的一方还有怀疑，则妥协会难以理解，于是战争就会到来，因为“战争本身会提供可信的、客观的验证：哪一国或哪一联盟是最强者……战争之后通常就是政治权力的有序化，换句话说，就是和平”。
Blainey从Kenneth Boulding的著作中得益非浅，尤其是他吸收了这一深刻洞见：“正如交换制度是经济的基础一样，威胁体制是政治的基础。”威胁可以维护和平，也可以引发战争。在审视了三百年间的战争数据后，最令他感到震惊的规律是，国家领导人对于发动战争的态度总是积极乐观的。由此，他得出结论：“如果两国对某一重大问题严重对立，同时两国又都认为自己轻易就能赢得战争，那么战争就可能会发生。如果任何一国都对获胜没有信心，或者他们觉得即使能获胜，也会经历一场长期的消耗战，那么战争就可能不会发生。”在书中，他还提供了一组极具说服力的历史事实支持这一观点。
Blainey发现，战争与经济的关系尤为有趣：在经济复苏的乐观情绪上升时更可能发生战争。Blainey不是决定论者，他重视每一场战争的所有细节。但是遍览300年来的战争与和平后，他认为当一国对其未来颇具信心（世界其他国家对其评估并非如此乐观）时正是战争发生几率最高的时候。正如他的精彩概括那样，第一次世界大战是“理论的天堂”。Blainey引用一战爆发时的德国首相贝特曼·霍尔韦格（Bethmann Hollweg）的话说：“我们的人民在最近二十年里取得了惊人的进步，以至于与世界其他国家相比，众人不得不高估我们的军事实力。”
这本书之所以如此令人感兴趣，是因为Blainey是一个重视证据细节的人。他检视了历史纪录后发现，许多关于战争为什么会发生的学术理论，简单点说，是错误的。这些理论把战争理解为：促使国家统一的国内冲突；攫取权力的机会主义行为；经济剥削的借口；增强经济和文化联结性的途径；由前一场战争的战后和平协议所引起；只是“偶发事件”；军备竞赛（的结果）等。他认为，这其中没有任何理论在历史事实面前能站得住脚。
现实主义者可能会认为Blainey是他们阵营中的一员，因为他痴迷于对权力的研究。但是我怀疑他本人是否愿意被贴上这一标签。现实主义者的核心观点是，国家追求权力的最大化。但Blainey没有对国家的动机进行阐述，他认为这不重要。他认为对相对力量的认知更能解释战争的动机。
他列出了形成一国相对力量的七个主要要素，并认为这些要素共同决定战争爆发的机率。它们是：军事力量和在战场有效运用军事力量的能力；对外部国家如何行动的预估；对一国及其敌对方国内团结或不和的认知；对以前的战争苦难的记忆；对经济繁荣的认知和对支撑战争的经济能力的认知；民族主义和意识形态；敌对国领导人的个人品质和精神品质。这些远比现实主义学派的内容丰富。
Blainey确实具有现实主义者的特征，尤其是他认为：“‘发达国家’迅速征服别国的能力常被其国内的自由主义以及她对人的生命的尊重所牵制。”他嘲笑那种认为误判是引发战争的原因的观点，认为这种说法只是“将表象错当为原因”，既然“在每场战争前夕至少有一国会误判其谈判能力，这也就意味着每场战争都是由误判所引发”。
Blainey反驳了他所称的曼彻斯特理论（Manchester theory），该理论认为，经济进步和知识进步会减少可引发战争的不满和误解。这一理论是19世纪英国进步人士普遍持有的观点，它设想人员交流的扩张，经济联系的加强，以及宗教影响的衰落会消除引发战争的因素。Blainey评论说，“它对人性 的乐观和对过度使用武力（的效果）的怀疑反映出其国内的安全环境。”也就是说，它更多地阐述了其支持理论，而非战争本身。威尔逊主义的支持者应有所醒悟，因为他并没有找出足够多的理由，让人们对以前的敌人宽容以待，也没有使我们想象中的世界能阻止未来的战争。
他在本书中用一个章节的内容详细分析了核时代的迷思，回顾了George Quester的《广岛核爆之前的威慑》（Deterrence Before Hiroshima）。Blainey指出，在核武器出现之前就存在威慑，武器技术革新本身作为维护和平的影响因素可能被高估，它们更可能使长期战争变为灾难性的短期战争。Blainey的结论是：“一个全副武装的世界几乎不可能令人安心，但如果没有国家联盟或超级大国相信可以通过其拥有的大量武器获得胜利，那么和平就可能持续下去。”
该书惟一不具说服力的部分是Blainey试图说明，战争期间双方的相互指责毫无意义，因为“只有在两国都同意的情况下，战争才会开始并持续下去”。也就是说，双方应承担同等的战争责任，而与谁先发动攻击无关。当然，大部分责任会由获胜者大肆宣扬地强加给失败者，矛盾积累到发生战争的这整个过程双方会经过许多次反反复复的交涉，在这两点上他是对的。但这并不意味着强者向弱者索取任何他想要的东西就是正当的。
与保守者的目标相比，领土扩张主义者的目标天然地缺少同情；与自由意愿相比，专制主义更少道德。Blainey称，德国“不应对1939年入侵波兰承担战争罪责，因为在战争爆发前夕她曾寻求波兰的较少让步，而就其军事实力来说她可以得到更多；波兰则因拒绝德国的要求而应承担战争责任”，这种观点损害了他那些令人信服的论据。这就是他在该书许多地方表现出的那种好辩的特质，即将一个合理的论点发展到极致。
尽管如此，它仍然是一本充满真知灼见，可称得上对传统政治思想提出挑战的非常有趣、非常重要的书。书中也有一些写得非常好的段落，例如：“20世纪让人觉得华而不实的地方在于，它经历了多次如第一次世界那样的战争。但18世纪至少有五场战争也涉及这么多的国家，也遍布这样大的面积，它们也可以被称为世界大战。”
该书值得一读之处还在于，Blainey进一步发掘出一些历史事实，这些事实对战争的影响在很大程度上已被遗忘：例如，在雇佣兵时代士兵逃亡率很高，因此战争的要诀在于小心谨慎，（聚兵一处）。但仍有人，比如拿破仑能够获得士兵的忠诚，因此可以冒更大风险，分散兵力攻击敌军。
Blainey的洞见在今天是很有意义的，他得出的结论是，历史上一国民众“被说服进行战争是因为其领导人太过乐观，并且缺乏耐心；而被说服停止战争，则是因为这些战败的领导人被更为谨慎的人所取代。”这些话读来就像是在说伊拉克战争和阿富汗战争，这也正是国家安全专家们应读一读《战争的缘由》这本书的原因所在。
（第一智库网初步翻译，仅供参考）
War: The Gambling Man’s Game
Geoffrey Blainey’s The Causes of War is a genuinely wonderful book. I had it pressed on me by one of the Pentagon’s most thoughtful people, and while it’s not a new book, it should be at the top of the reading lists of people interested in international relations. Like much else in the book, Blainey is straightforward in his title: he is examining why wars occur. He quotes Clausewitz to the effect that of all the branches of human activity, war is the most like a gambling game, and Blainey’s approach is very much marked by game theory.
Blainey argues that assessments of relative power drive decisions on war and peace, and that war occurs when nations misjudge their relative power. He writes, “War is usually the outcome of a diplomatic crisis which cannot be solved because both sides have conflicting estimates of their bargaining power.” Disputes about issues central to states’ interests can be negotiated when there is a clear hierarchy of power—the weaker compromises to prevent war. When there is doubt about the weaker party, compromise is elusive and wars occur, because “war itself provides the most reliable and most objective test of which nation or alliance is the most powerful...war was therefore usually followed by an orderly market in political power, or in other words, peace.”
Blainey draws heavily on the work of Kenneth Boulding, especially the insight that “threat systems are the basis of politics as exchange systems are the basis of economics.” Threats keep peace as well as provoke wars. The pattern most striking to him assessing the data from three centuries of warfare is that leaders are typically optimistic commencing a war.From there, he draws the conclusion that “if two nations are deep in disagreement on a vital issue, and if both expect that they will easily win a war, then war is highly likely. If neither nation is confident of victory, or if they expect victory to come only after long fighting, then war is unlikely.” He proceeds to offer a very persuasive set of historical proofs to support it.
The economic correlation Blainey finds is particularly interesting: war is more likely to occur as optimism about an economic recovery increases. Blainey is no determinist; he sees the historical specifics as important in each war. But looking across 300 years of war and peace, he sees the greatest incidence of wars when states are confident about their future, even when others in the international order rate their futures less optimistically. World War I is, as he so wonderfully phrases it, “the haven of the theory.” Blainey quotes BethmannHollweg, chancellor of Germany at the outbreak of the war: “Our people had developed so amazingly in the last twenty years that wide circles succumbed to the temptation of overestimating our enormous forces in relation to those of the rest of the world.”
What makes Blainey’s book so enjoyable is that he’s a stickler for evidence. He examines the historical record and finds that many academic theories about why wars start are, simply, inaccurate. Among those theories are explanations of war as conflicts to generate national unity in times of civil strife; as opportunistic grabs for power; as excuses for economic deprivation; as means to increase economic and cultural connectedness; as caused by peace terms in a previous war; as “accidental”; and as arms races—he finds none of these theories stands up against the facts.
Realists would categorize Blainey as a member of their camp since he is obsessed with power. But I doubt he would consent to be so labeled. A central tenet of realist theory is that states seek to maximize their power; Blainey makes no claims to state motivation; he considers it unimportant. Perceptions of relative strength, rather, are the motivation for warfare.
He identifies seven main factors of a state’s relative strength, the combination of which determines the chances of war: military strength and the ability to apply that strength efficiently in the chosen zone of war; predictions of how outside nations would behave; perceptions of the state’s and its enemies’ internal unity or discord; memories of the sufferings caused by the previous wars; perceptions of prosperity and of ability to economically sustain the kind of war envisaged; nationalism and ideology; and the personality and mental qualities of the opposing sides’ leaders. Those are too many variables for the Realist school to catalogue.
But Blainey does have characteristics of the Realist approach, especially when he argues that “the capacity of an ‘advanced nation’ to conquer quickly was often retarded by its liberalism and its respect for human life.” He is derisive about miscalculation as a cause of warfare, believing it to be “a description masquerading as an explanation,” since “on the eve of each war at least one of the nations miscalculated its bargaining power. In that sense every war comes from a misunderstanding.”
Blaineyis especially good rebutting what he calls the Manchester theory, which is that commercial and intellectual progress reduce grievance and misunderstandings that cause wars. This approach, which was common among progressives in 19th century Britain, envisioned the expansion of travel, commercial linkages, and the decline of religion to remove the causes of war. Blainey assesses that “its optimism about human nature and distrust of excessive force reflect the securityof its home environment.”That is, it says more about its advocates than warfare. It should give pause to supporters of Wilsonianism that he finds such little support for our generosity to former enemies and making the world in our image preventing future wars.
He also has a very fine chapter on the myths of the nuclear era, reminiscent of the arguments in George Quester’sDeterrence Before Hiroshima. Blainey points out that deterrence existed before nuclear weapons, that the technological innovation of the weapons themselves may be overrated as a cause of peace, and that they are as likely to usher in long wars as cataclysmically short ones. Blainey concludes “a heavily-armed world is hardly a reassuring spectacle, but if no alliance or superpower believes it can gain victory by using its massive arms, then the peace is likely to continue.”
The only part of the book that is unpersuasive is Blainey’s attempt to argue that blame is pointless in warfare since “war can only begin and can only continue with the consent of at least two nations.” That is, the parties bear equivalent blame, irrespective of who attacks first. He is, of course, right that much blame is propagandisticallyapportioned by the winners against the losers, and that the run up to actual fighting typically involves many iterations of interaction. But that does not mean a strong power is justified in demanding anything it desires from a weak power.
Expansionist aims are inherently less sympathetic than preservationist aims, despotism less virtuous than the desire for freedom. And Blainey hurts his case by asserting that Germany “be exonerated for invading Poland in 1939 because on the eve of war she sought humbler concessions than her military might justified; Poland would thereby become the culprit for refusing those concessions.” This is the kind of argumentative cuteness he rightly assails in much of the book, the taking of a reasonable point to ridiculous extreme.
Still, this is an overwhelmingly interesting and important book, full of wonderful insights that challenge traditional political science issues. It also includes some really fine writing, such as this passage: “One vanity of the twentieth century is the belief that it experienced the first world wars, but at least five wars in the eighteenth century involved so many nations and spanned so much of the globe that they could also be called world wars.”
Blainey further does the reader a great service by unearthing historical artifacts whose effects on warfare are largely forgotten: in the days of mercenary armies, for instance, war tactics were more cautious because the rates of desertion were so high. But someone like Napoleon had greater loyalty and therefore could take more risks, like dispersing his troops.
Blainey’s insights are relevant today, as when he concludes that societies have historically been “persuaded to fight because most of their leaders were excessively optimistic and impatient men, and persuaded to cease fighting because those leaders, having failed, had been replaced by more cautious men.” That reads like an epithet of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, which is yet another reason The Causes of War should be required reading for national security experts.
