Does possessing enough nuclear weaponry to make great power wars the potential cause of humanity’s extermination make such wars obsolete? Unfortunately, history tells us that, far from being obsolete, such wars may be unavoidable, and they grow in likelihood as the competitive international environment becomes increasingly militarized.
Premium Member-Only Content
Don't miss out. Become a member of the Naval Institute today.
1. Rod Lyon, “Is Major War Obsolete?” The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 19 August 2014.
2. Cam Rea, “‘Lion of the North’ Gustavus Adolphus and the Thirty Years’ War: Fighting the Holy Roman Empire—Part I,” War and Civilization blog, www.camrea.org, 18 January 2017.
3. Iskander Rehman, “Raison d’Etat: Richelieu’s Grand Strategy During the Thirty Years’ War,” Texas National Security Review 2, no. 3 (June 2019).
4. Hugo Grotius, The Rights of War and Peace (1901 ed.), oll.libertyfund.org/titles/grotius-the-rights-of-war-and-peace-1901-ed.
5. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, Michael Howard and Peter Paret, eds. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), 8.
6. Paul Halsall, “Levee en Masse,” Modern History Sourcebook.
7. Mark Hewitson, “Princes’ Wars, Wars of the People, or Total War? Mass Armies and the Question of a Military Revolution in Germany, 1792–1815,” War in History 20, no. 4 (November 2013): 452–90.
8. Rea, “‘Lion of the North’ Gustavus Adolphus.”
9. Stig Förster, “Facing ‘People’s War’: Moltke the Elder and Germany’s Military Options after 1871,” Journal of Strategic Studies 10, no. 2 (October 1987): 209–30.
10. Quoted in Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War: Explaining World War I (New York: Basic Books, 2008).
11. Rod Lyon, “Wars of Necessity, Wars of Choice,” The Strategist, Australian Strategic Policy Institute, 26 April 2017.
12. Graham Allison, “The New Spheres of Influence,” Foreign Affairs 99, no. 2 (March/April 2020).
