POLI 360 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Schlieffen Plan, John Mearsheimer, Risk Neutral
23 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
How the military strategies contributed to the. The potential attackers fear of consequences of military action is the heart of deterrence. An attacker has to calculate if the attack will have limited consequences (low cost) or not. If the probability of success is low and the attendant costs are high a potential attacker may back away and decide not to start a war. Deterrence is achieved when a potential attacker believes war to be very costly and they find their goals unachievable so they will not start war. If a particular military strategy allows quick victory in the planning of the attacked, the temptation to start a war is high. How do we define the cost of a war. Cost is a function of military and civilian casualties, expenses of mobilising and deploying and maintaining forces, damage and loss to military equipment. In a conventional war the cost of war escalates in a gradual fashion, it is protracted.
