POLI 142K Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Collective Action, Planetside
Document Summary
2. crisis behavior enforceability and international institutions: the united nations, hypothesis iv: the continuing primacy of state interests, trade and conflict, alliance survival (alliances are contingent, hypothesis v: domestic commitment and war. Illustration: the limits of information-based explanations of war: 1914 short war. Illustration: limits of misperception: hitler, france and britain: 1936-1939: between 1936 and 1939, hitler repeatedly signals expansionist goals; accepts costs of war, at any point between 1936-1939, an alliance of france, britain, and the ussr could have defeated. Britain: collective action failure: incentives to free ride, ussr cannot be trusted: negative reputation. Results of the grand offensives (august-november 1914: battlefield context, hats and uniform colors represent a mix of national traditions (german spiked helmet); budgetary constraints and the necessity of identification (friend and foe) Ammy (ammunition), artillery generates maximum destructive force per square yard (mostly air-burst shrapnel) but rifle and machine gun bullets generate maximum lethality (2,000-20,000 pounds of shells vs. one bullet)
