The strategic drift towards war

=A popular buzz-word in Germany at this time is Weltpolitik ('world politics'), meaning that the nation must assert itself on the international stage in order to claim its 'place in the sun'. To this end much pride is placed in the plan devised by Admiral von Tirpitz to provide the nation with a High Seas Fleet to match the naval forces of Britain.

Tirpitz's demands on the Reichstag escalate in the inexorable pattern of any arms race. In 1898 he persuades the politicians to pass a Navy Law providing for a fleet of 16 battleships. Two years later a new Navy Law revises the figure to 38 battleships, with a completion date of 1917 for the full fleet.

This level will still be below that of the British navy, but Tirpitz argues that it will provide Germany with a Risikoflotte ('risk fleet'), meaning one too dangerous for Britain to attack. Britain radically upsets the calculation by introducing in 1906 a vastly more powerful class of battleship, the first of the famous 'dreadnoughts'. Germany follows suit, upgrading its production line to the new standard.

To the German argument that Britain is escalating the stakes, Winston Churchill (when first lord of the admiralty in 1912) replies that for an island nation a powerful navy is a defensive necessity, whereas to Germany it is 'more in the nature of a luxury'.

Meanwhile the German strategy for the army in the event of war is both more secret and more illicit. It is the work of Alfred von Schlieffen, chief of the general staff from 1891 to 1906. During the second half of the 1890s, when France and Russia are in alliance and it is accepted that a war must be fought on both fronts, Schlieffen devises a two-stage plan.

A massive and rapid flanking attack will be made on France from the north, through Belgium (in total disregard of Belgium's neutrality), while a relatively light force holds at bay the Russians - who are likely to be slower in their mobilization. France will then be defeated in time to redirect the full German might against Russia.

In December 1912 the emperor William II and his military advisers hold a secret meeting in which they discuss the possible launch of a preventive war, on the basis of the Schlieffen Plan, to protect Germany's interests. Tirpitz argues for delay to give him more time to build up the fleet. His view prevails, but it is agreed that it will be essential to wait for not much more than two years.

In 1913 the Reichstag passes a bill to increase the size of Germany's peacetime army, with a target of 800,000 men by the autumn of 1914. The other four players in this dangerous game are also now following suit. There is no evident reason for war. But policy, as if by stealth, seems to be making it inevitable.

Situation in americas (North and South)– The usa Solely Arbiter in both Americas, it kept aloof from European balance-of-power struggles, but considered North and Latin America as its backyard.

In the wider world, a diplomatic system of the European variety existed nowhere else.

The outcome of the U.S. Civil War and Anglo-American settlement of the Canadian border ensured that North America would not develop a multilateral balance-of-power system.

South and Central America had splintered into 17 independent republics following the final retreat of Spanish rule in 1820; but the new Latin-American states were inward-looking, their centres of population and resources isolated by mountains, jungle, and sheer distance, and disputes among them were of mostly local interest.

The Monroe Doctrine was promulgated by the United States and enforced by the British navy, sufficed to spare Latin America new European adventures, the only major exception—Napoleon III's gambit in Mexico—occurring while the United States was preoccupied with civil war. When the United States purchased Alaska from the Russian tsar and Canada acquired dominion status, both in 1867, European possessions on the American mainland were reduced to three small Guianan colonies in South America and British Honduras (Belize) (in the 2’nd half of the 19’th century).

(Monroe Doctrine – a principle of U.S. policy, originated by President Monroe in 1823, that any intervention by external powers in the politics of the Americas is a potentially hostile act against the U.S. В послании отмечалось, что любая попытка европейских держав вмешаться в дела своих бывших колоний в Западном полушарии будет расцениваться как нарушение жизненных интересов США. Европейские державы призывались воздерживаться от создания новых колоний на американском континенте. США брали на себя обязательство не вмешиваться в европейские дела. Доктрина доминировала во внешней политике США в течение столетия и фактически означала включение Латинской Америки в сферу жизненных интересов США. Ни одна из держав не бросала открытого вызова положениям этой доктрины, но споры о ее законности продолжаются до сих пор (сами США вмешивались в европейские дела и участвовали в мировых войнах, Советский Союз поддерживал режимы на Кубе и в Никарагуа, а Великобритания с помощью военной силы сохранила власть над Фолклендскими (Мальвинскими) островами и т.д.)).

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