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Chemical warfare had played an important enough role in World War I that there was widespread expectation of its use in World War II. Certainly, Germany's army and its chemists had no qualms about adding poison gas to the Third Reich's arsenal. When war began, however, many of the latest chemical warfare agents were not available in deliverable form. The early successes of conventional-war making, combined with an increasing shortage of raw material, led Germany to deemphasize gas warfare even apart from the fear of Allied retaliation that significantly influenced at least the armed forces.

Der Artikel analysiert die Vormachtstellung und die damit verbundenen Hegemoniebestrebungen der USA vor und nach dem 2.Weltkrieg. Vor dem 2.Weltkrieg waren die USA eingegliedert in eine Reihe von Großmächten und waren v.a. zwischen den Jahren 1920 und 1930 nicht bereit, eine Führungsrolle zu übernehmen. Erst nach dem 2.Weltkrieg mit dem beginnenden Ost-West-Konflikt kristallisierte sich die Stellung der Supermacht heraus (SWP-Drh)

One of the most important puzzles of twentieth-century international relations is why the American conception of security vis-à-vis the European Powers shifted from unilateralism to internationalism after World War II but not after World War I. In this article I document that this shift was measurably one of collective ideas and explain the transformation. Scholarship on the sea change in American global thinking has been hampered by the lack of attention to the broader issues of when and why collective ideas change. To address this gap I offer a general framework to account for ideational change: I highlight the interaction between collective ideas and events that allows individuals and societies to overcome barriers to ideational change in some circumstances but not others. This argument clarifies the otherwise puzzling development of American ideas and offers a template for understanding change in other areas.

A wave of recent scholarship, embracing both rational choice & cultural approaches, highlights the importance of collective ideas in explaining politics. What this work has not adequately addressed, however, is why collective ideas sometimes radically change. Scholars typically attribute ideational change ad hoc to creative entrepreneurial agents or exogenous shock. But these solutions fail to account for why some entrepreneurs & not others are successful in marketing their ideas or why similar shocks lead to change in one instance but continuity in another. Explaining these variations is aided by conceptualizing ideational change as a two-stage process involving collapse & consolidation. Collapse involves societal actors reaching an agreement that the old orthodoxy is inadequate. Consolidation requires social coordination on a replacement set of ideas. Both steps involve collective ideation problems where actors may have difficulty coordinating a change in dominant ideas or have incentives to shirk facilitating efficient adaptation. The outcome of these two steps is in part endogenous to ideational structure itself. Collective ideas generate expectations, which in particular ways interact with experienced events, either inhibiting change or allowing societies to transform their own dominant notions. The approach is illustrated with examples involving collectively held causal ideas in a variety of foreign policy domains. 1 Table, 70 References. Adapted from the source document.

International relations theorists have in recent years shown an interest in international norms and rules not equaled since the interwar period. This contemporary literature is, of course, quite different—i.e., better—than that of the 1920s and 1930s: it has greater intellectual depth, empirical backing, and explanatory power. The promise of this research, bolstered by the opportunities of the post–cold war era, is that norms encouraging free trade, protecting the environment, enhancing human rights, and controlling the spread and use of heinous weapons may have a substantial impact on the conduct and structure of international relations. But pessimists also exist. Some have taken up the stick E. H. Carr skillfully shook at idealists in an earlier period, arguing that the anarchic power-shaped international arena is not so malleable and that international norms and institutions have relatively little influence. On the one hand, we are pointed to the centrality of international norms; on the other, we are cautioned that norms are inconsequential. How do we make sense of these divergent claims? Which is right?

Rational choice analyses of international cooperation have slighted the effect of state preference formation and the influence of cultural forces in that process. This article addresses these gaps by developing an explanation that specifies howorganizational culturesof bureaucracies shape state aims and international outcomes. This approach is evaluated in a set of least likely cases—decisions on the use of force in war—where the conventional wisdom expects external material, not internal cultural, concerns to dominate. Before World War II, countries agreed to limit the use of three types of warfare, but during that conflict mutual restraint was maintained in only one. I show how this variation is best understood as a product of state preference dynamics, shaped largely by the collective beliefs and customs of military services. This result suggests ways to rethink the use of the preferences-interaction model and the role of cultural factors in that framework.

Why do nations cooperate even as they try to destroy each other? Jeffrey Legro explores this question in the context of World War II, the "total" war that in fact wasn't. During the war, combatant states attempted to sustain agreements limiting the use of three forms of combat considered barbarous—submarine attacks against civilian ships, strategic bombing of civilian targets, and chemical warfare. Looking at how these restraints worked or failed to work between such fierce enemies as Hitler's Third Reich and Churchill's Britain, Legro offers a new understanding of the dynamics of World War II and the sources of international cooperation. While traditional explanations of cooperation focus on the relations between actors, Cooperation under Fire examines what warring nations seek and why they seek it—the "preference formation" that undergirds international interaction. Scholars and statesmen debate whether it is the balance of power or the influence of international norms that most directly shapes foreign policy goals. Critically assessing both explanations, Legro argues that it was, rather, the organizational cultures of military bureaucracies—their beliefs and customs in waging war—that decided national priorities for limiting the use of force in World War II. Drawing on documents from Germany, Britain, the United States, and the former Soviet Union, Legro provides a compelling account of how military cultures molded state preferences and affected the success of cooperation. In its clear and cogent analysis, this book has significant implications for the theory and practice of international relations. ; https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/1263/thumbnail.jpg

How can the use of "unthinkable" means of warfare be avoided? How can states successfully observe mutually desired limitations on "taboo" forms of combat? These questions are important because of concern that nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and terrorism will spread and be used. The growing number of states--e.g., Israel, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Ukraine--that have such means of inflicting harm increases the likelihood that any future conflict will involve a desire for restrictions. Countries may pursue restraint because popular opinion vilifies certain weapons; because leaders calculate that escalation would damage their domestic and international political support; or because states fear retaliatory attacks. Unfortunately, even when nations agree that limitations are desirable, restraint does not always endure. A key source of this disparity can be found in accidents and inadvertent escalation. In contemporary affairs among major powers, the apparent absence of grounds for intentional aggression, against a backdrop of change and instability, makes the unintended expansion of conflict a central concern. States may not seek a spiral of hostility but still can stumble into escalation. Why?