Davis Farris
Civ 202
November 30, 2009

Why Nations go to War Review Why do notions go to war? What is the reasoning behind their actions? John G. Stoessinger analyzes these questions in his book, Why Nations go to War. Stoessinger believes that to understand the war, you must understand the leaders of the war. When you understand the leaders you understand their actions and when you understand their actions, you have the answer to the question, "Why do nations go to war?" In this review paper I am going to review each chapter individually, 1-10. I will then give a brief summary of the book and what I think as a whole based on my reading.

Chapter 1 This chapter is an analyzation of the beginning of WWI and how Austria's
There were many factors that lead to his suicide. One of which I believe to be his miscalculations of Russia. First, the Russian winter. Second is the misperception of the Russian Soldiers will to fight for their Russian homeland. Stoessinger said, “Stalin immediately perceived that the Russian soldier would not give his life for Communism, the party, or its leader, but that he would fight to the death for his Russian homeland,” (page 56). This war was influenced by the incompetence of the leaders; specifically Germany’s leader, Hitler. Hitler did not take a lot of things into consideration and because of this he lost the war.

Chapter 3 The third chapter takes into account the misperceptions of General Douglass MacArthur during the Korean War. The beginning of the Korean war is unclear to all. Stoessinger has a few theories as do other people. His theories are: 1) Stalin was upset that his advancements in the western front were stopped by NATO and he turned to Asia to begin to expand his territory. 2) Stalin wanted to create problems for China after the rise of Mao Zedong. 3) There was a Chinese initiative in North Korea. 4) The North Korean attack of South Korea was caused by internal affairs. Regardless of the theories war was declared and this affected many nations. Stoessinger said: The outbreak of the Korean War may be divided into three separate and distinct phases: the decision to repel the North