Power Shifts, Strategy, and War: Declining States and International Conflict

摘要

A perennial question in international relations theory concerns the link between power shifts and violent conflict. Dong Sun Lee's purpose in this interesting new book is to explain why some power shifts lead to war while others do not. Lee's original argument centers on military strategy as a key determinant of decisions to initiate preventive war. More specifically, he argues that 'the probability of war is primarily a function of whether the declining state possess a maneuver strategy or an attrition strategy' (p.2).