Arms Races and the Origins of the Second World War, 1929-1941.

第二次世界大战的起因继续吸引着学者们。绥靖政策、法西斯主义的源泉以及纳粹破坏计划的连贯性引发了激烈的辩论。在过去的三十年里，历史学家仔细研究了这些文献，涌现出了丰富的关于列强外交和国防政策的文献。一些问题似乎有答案--或者至少是模棱两可的--而其他问题，比如苏联计算背后的现实，则有待新的研究。然而，一个重要的问题仍然被忽视：军备竞赛和1939-41年全球战争的到来之间有什么关系？这种忽视乍看起来令人费解。在冷战期间，核武器与国际稳定之间的因果关系是关乎生存的问题。蒂尔皮茨、无畏步枪和最后一刻的一系列军法都出现在关于一战的每一篇文章中。为什么不是上世纪30年代呢？答案很清楚。在研究的初始阶段，查阅大量档案材料以了解所有大国的军备目标是一个不可能的挑战。学者们自然而然地把注意力集中在国家政策上。一些专家甚至质疑，是否有足够明显的州际进程来贴上“军备竞赛”的标签。最重要的是，1939年关于战争的辩论围绕着人物/希特勒、张伯伦、斯大林和达拉迪尔/他们的选择和对他们选择自由的限制展开。换句话说，爱德华·格雷爵士对1914年的解释中的决定论/欧洲军备的巨大增长、由此引起的不安全感和恐惧/正是这些使战争不可避免/与政治家的罪责并不相称。然而，最近关于1914年的研究表明，探索20世纪30年代的军备竞赛是一个值得和可行的项目。大卫·赫尔曼在《第一次世界大战》(1996)一书中分析了总参谋部在武装欧洲方面的看法和计算，而大卫·史蒂文森则在《武器与战争的来临》(1996)中分析了《外交的军事化》。两位历史学家都超越了一个显而易见的结论，即武器的积累是战争的先决条件，他们都拒绝爱德华·格雷爵士的裁决的决定论。为了提供历史上可靠和具体的分析，赫尔曼和史蒂文森在两个层面上重建了军备竞赛：作为一种独特的州际竞争过程，以及作为对1914年政治家的授权和约束影响。类似的方法也可以应用于20世纪30年代，结果也同样令人满意。我们需要了解军备竞争的‘体制’如何影响国家政策和战争决策。军备竞赛是国家之间的竞争。为了理解军备竞赛如何展开和影响国际政治，历史学家必须研究行动和反应如何跨越国界。在两次世界大战之间，没有一位历史学家着手捕捉全球海、陆、空军备竞争的动态，或探索军备竞赛和第二次世界大战到来之间的联系。本项目建议这样做。

The causes of World War Two continue to fascinate scholars. Appeasement policy, the wellsprings of fascism and the coherence of the Nazi programme of destruction provoke heated debate. Over the last thirty years, historians have pored over the documents and a rich literature on the foreign and defence policies of the great powers has emerged. Some questions appear to have answers / or at least ambiguous ones - while others, such as the reality behind Soviet calculations, are open to fresh research. One important question, however, remains neglected: What was the relationship between arms races and the coming of global war in 1939-41? This neglect at first appears puzzling. In the Cold War, the causal link between nuclear weapons and international stability was a matter of survival. Tirpitz, dreadnoughts and the flurry of last-minute army laws all find their place in every text on the Great War. Why not the 1930s? The answers are clear enough. In the initial phase of research, consulting the vast body of archival material to make sense of armaments objectives of all the Great Powers presented an impossible challenge. Scholars naturally concentrated on national policies. Some specialists even questioned whether there were interstate processes distinct enough to label 'arms races'. And, above all else, the debate about war in 1939 revolves around personalities / Hitler, Chamberlain, Stalin and Daladier / their choices and the limitations on their freedom to choose. In other words, the determinism of Sir Edward Grey's explanation for 1914 / that 'the enormous growth of armaments in Europe, the sense of insecurity and fear caused by them / it was these that made war inevitable' / does not sit comfortably beside a preoccupation with the culpability of statesmen. Recent work on 1914, however, demonstrates that exploring the arms race of the 1930s is a worthy and feasible project. David Herman investigates the perceptions and calculations of general staffs in The Arming of Europe the Making of the First World War (1996), while David Stevenson analyses the 'militarization of diplomacy' in Armaments and the Coming of War (1996). Both historians go beyond the obvious conclusion that the build-up of weapons was a precondition for war and they both reject the determinism of Sir Edward Grey's verdict. To provide a historically sound and concrete analysis, Herman and Stevenson reconstruct the arms race at two levels: as a distinct interstate process of competition and as an empowering and constraining influence on the statesmen of 1914. Similar methods can be applied to the 1930s with equally rewarding results. We need to understand how the 'system' of arms competition shaped national policy and decisions for war. Arms races are competitions between states. To understand how an arms race unfolds and influences international politics, the historian must examine how actions and reactions criss-crossed frontiers. For the interwar period, no historian has set out to capture the dynamic of global competition in land, sea and air armaments or to explore the connections between the arms race and the coming of World War Two. This project proposes to do so.