Snyder, Jack. "Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984". International Security, Vol.9, No.1 (1984): 108-146.

Snyder, Jack. "Civil-Military Relations and the Cult of the Offensive, 1914 and 1984". International Security, Vol.9, No.1 (1984): 108-146.

• The defensive advantage provided by military technology in 1914 should have made the European 'balance-of-power' system extremely stable, but instead the offensive military doctrine of European nations, pursued despite a technological disadvantage, meant that conflict created insecurity because all states feared invasion (108).
• As seen in the Russo-Japanese War and the Boer Wars, military technology gave a huge advantage to defenders in the form of entrenchment, accurate firepower, and the use of domestic railways (108). In reality, it is not that clear cut, as, if anything, the Russo-Japanese War demonstrated that only massed infantry offensives could defeat entrenched artillery.
• The example provided shows that technology alone does not determine the security environment, as the doctrine and strategy of the European armies in 1914 created an aggressive and unstable situation despite technological factors favoring defense (115).
• The offensive campaigns launched by the European powers in WWI were all failures and imposed considerable strategic costs. The German offensive brought Britain into the war, the French offensive left too little manpower to defend against the Schlieffen Plan, and the early Russian offensive lost manpower and materiel needed in Austria-Hungary (108-109).
• The failure of the offensive strategy could have been foreseen and was predicted by multiple general staffs. General Alfred von Schlieffen's own war games indicated that a German offensive could be defeated through utilizing railway mobility, as General Joseph Joffre ending up doing, and that Russian offensives could be defeated the same way (109).
• European armies adopted offensive strategies, despite the strategic disadvantage of doing so, because offensive plans allowed them to paper over severe institutional issues within the armed forces and in civil-military relations. Armies function better under offense than defense, and so offensive plans were universally preferred, especially in countries with a breakdown in civilian control (109-110, 140).
• Civil-military relations were particularly bad during this time period because the military, although increasingly trained and professionalized, was still dominated by aristocrats. This meant that civilians, who were increasingly of non-aristocratic backgrounds, were both ignorant of military affairs and distrusted by the officer corps (111).
• The European countries did not initially have offensive army doctrines, but only developed these as a consequence of specific failures in civil-military relations before or at the time of the First World War. Indeed, France and Russia only adopted offensive battle plans as recently as 1910 (110).
• Germany moved towards entirely offensive military planning beginning with the appointment of Alfred von Schlieffen as Chief of General Staff in 1891. An absence of any effective civilian oversight of the military led it to adopt an offensive doctrine because that best supported military prestige and reduced uncertainty in planning (110).
• The German army had such an intense offensive military doctrine and plans because military planning was seen as the sole purview of the general staff, over which civilians were not supposed to exercise any control. Indeed, the general staff advocated for using war as a tool to avoid diplomacy all-together (115-116). 
• France adopted a radically offensive doctrine in 1911, having previously planned for a moderate counter-offensive. This move was a response to the French Third Republic's civilian leadership's moves towards shorter terms of military service, which -- combined with public pressure and drastic reform as a result of the Dreyfus Affair -- threatened the position of the military. Since public discussions revolved around a short-term conscript army being only fit for defense, the military saw the best way to argue for longer terms of service as being to adopt offensive doctrine. After the 'republican' officer corps was replaced by General Joffre's hardliners in 1911 after the Agadir Crisis, France moved towards this entirely offensive policy and longer terms of service (110-111).
• Russia switched to an offensive strategy around 1912, as its armed forces recovered from defeat in the Russo-Japanese War. Offensive doctrine was demanded by both the general staff, who wanted to attack Germany, and the Kiev military district, which wanted to attack Austria-Hungary. There was no effective civilian coordinate or control over the military, meaning that both places were endorsed. However, not enough soldiers existed to achieve both goals, so instead insufficient numbers were sent to both because no civilian power existed to arbitrate between the two group of military staff (111).
• The current [in 1984] security environment also strongly favors the defender, since both size possess nuclear weapons. Moreover, the advantages of a first strike are not minimized by the presence of second strike capability for both the USA and the USSR. This should predict a scenario of international stability, but, as 1914 shows, technological advantages for defense do not provide stability if states erroneously believe that offense is a superior strategy (111-112).
• Some scholars have claimed that Europeans in 1914 believed that the first army to mobilize its forces and attack would have a significant advantage. This pressure to mobilize first meant that military mobilization was prioritized, despite being perceived as threatening, over diplomatic options and confidence-building measures (113).
• Closer inspection finds that no army actually believed that two days would give them the advantage needed to win the war, as all armies specifically concentrated their forces and railheads at least distance from the front to avoid being encircled or overwhelmed in a surprise attack. This is shown by the fact that various European armies mobilized at different times and did not race as soon as Austria-Hungary's ultimate to Serbia was announced (113). This does appear to be a significant factor behind Russian mobilization, however, as Russia was less concerned with attack first than in making sure that Germany could not launch a surprise first strike against France (114).
• The adoption of offensive doctrine by European states reflected the belief that conquest was easy, while this belief created greater fears of military aggression and led to the further build-up of offensive forces. Since states were viewed as vulnerable to attack and difficult to defend -- despite the opposite being true -- the further build-up of other state's offensive forces led to correspondingly larger offensive forces elsewhere and a greater emphasis on offense (114-115).
• The war plans designed by General von Schlieffen, inspired by Helmuth Karl von Moltke's campaigns in 1866 and 1870, intended to exploit the slow mobilization of the Russian army, which could not fully deploy for the first two months of war, to bring all units against France and encircle the French army as it sought to defend Paris (116).
• By 1897, General von Schlieffen had concluded that any attack to disable France would have to come through Belgium, since the area around Alsace-Lorraine was more narrow and defensible. By 1905, the full version of the Schlieffen plan had been completed, with plans for the bulk of the Germany army to take Belgium and northern France in three or four weeks, followed by an encirclement of Paris, then redeployment of these force to the Russian front (116).
• Both General von Schlieffen and General Helmut Johannes von Moltke recognized severe shortcomings in the Schlieffen plan, including difficult logistics, the potential to provoke new enemies through the invasion of neutral Belgium, the possibility of Russia attacking before the capture of Paris, the potential for rapid French redeployment against the German right flank, and lack of troops (116-117).
• The German general staff largely accepted this plan despite its faults because they were convinced that all of the other plans were worse. However, after the appointment of General von Schlieffen in 1891, the general staff refused to consider the defensive strategy of equal deployment on western and eastern fronts proposed by General Helmuth Karl von Moltke in 1890, and which was eventually adopted in 1915 (117).
• These fears are present in earlier assessments and versions of the Schlieffen plan, but disappear in the later drafts without ever being properly addressed. This reflects the flawed belief of Germany military leaders that rapid victory was necessary, thereby demanding plans, however flawed or incomplete, to achieve that goal (136).
• Austria-Hungary objected to the lack of German assistance against Russia envisioned in the Schlieffen plan, so in 1912, Germany ran a wargame of a full attack against Russia, demonstrating that the French would overrun German forces in Elsass-Lothringen before Germany could capture Moscow (117).
• These war games were rigged to favor offense, with Belgian and Netherlandish forces added to the attacks and German defenders unrealistically reduced. Earlier wargames at the turn of the 20th Century had shown that even a small German defense could repel a French attack, leading the general staff to manipulate results to support their offensive Schlieffen plan (117). This was later justified by claims that the German economy could only survive a short aggressive war (117-118).
• The German military operated with a strong bias towards the offensive, often in the face of military logic, because military officers are trained to expect war and thus favor preemptive strikes to prevent the military empowerment of others, because offensive plans require the least improvisation and are thus preferred by military planners, and because the role of diplomats and politicians is most reduced in a situation of offense (118-121, 129).
• This desire to have all aspects of combat planned out had only become predominant under General von Schlieffen, as General Helmuth Karl von Moltke specifically rejected the idea that an entire campaign could be pre-planned (120).
• The societal role and power of the army was also bolstered by advocacy for an offensive war, since such predictions promised that wars would be aggressive, cheap, and short. Proposing aggressive wars thus bolstered popular support for the military and its plans (121).
• The dogmatic adherence to offensive doctrine and authority within the German army began under Helmuth Karl von Moltke, who ingrained in the general staff the need to engage in short preventive wars, although he himself was more militarily flexible (122). For example, by the 1890s, he believed that defense now held the advantage in combat (123).
• General von Schlieffen institutionalized and standardized the ideas of offensive doctrine and preventive war within the German general staff, and never exercised the same flexibility or willingness to improvise as had Helmuth Karl von Moltke; after observing the defensive advantage in the Russo-Japanese War, he concluded that offense must work even harder to be victorious. Unlike Helmuth Karl von Moltke, General von Schlieffen never ventured into politics and believed that politicians alone should decide when wars should be fought and the army alone should decide how they should be fought (123).
• The political influence of military planners that had existed under Helmuth Karl von Moltke combined with the unreflective belief in aggressive total war under Alfred von Schlieffen in the German officer corps of the late 1900s and early 1910s, producing figures such as Erich von Ludendorff and Wilhelm Groener. This group was more aggressive in demanding military budget increases and aggressive foreign policy, in part because its officer corps was more middle class and thus desired social status from the army (124-125).
• It is often claimed that Germany was so aggressive in WWI because the civilian leadership wanted to overturn the European political and military order; this ambition thus explains the aggressive plans of the Germany army, including the Schlieffen plan (125).
• This view overestimates the role of civilian leadership in developing military plans, which in practice was virtually nil. The adoption of the Schlieffen plan did not result from a more aggressive civilian foreign policy, as is sometimes claimed, but because German military planners through an offensive against Russia would fail due to her improved defenses in Poland. Similarly, General von Schlieffen was selected as chief of staff by civilian leadership because he was the next in line after Alfred von Waldersee, who was fired for criticizing the Kaiser's decisions during a wargame, not because the civilian leaders approved of, or had even read, his military plans (125).
• Military leaders were given enormous flexibility in times of war, and the decision to violate Belgian neutrality cam from the military staff, not the civilian leadership. Reichschancellor Bernhard von Bülow deferred immediately to General von Schlieffen upon discovering the plan to violate Belgian neutrality, and Foreign Secretary Gottlieb von Jagow dropped civilian discussion of the issue after receiving a memo from Helmuth Johannes von Moltke. Civilians had an opportunity to exercise control, but choose not to because the idea of a quick and decisive war of aggression appeal to them (125-126).
• German diplomatic strategy did not anticipate nor did it want a major war, instead it sought to apply German power in small cases to achieve minor foreign policy victories, as during the 1905 Agadir Crisis. The total war plans of the army were not suited to these kinds of foreign policy goals, especially since no mobilizations could take place without beginning an aggressive war (126-127, 129).
• After the end of the Napoleonic period, the French military had an uneasy relationship with civilian governments, as most army officers had either monarchist or Bonapartist politics. French republican politicians feared a military coup, while the military feared that republican efforts to reduce military service from seven years to three years would reduce military professionalism. The military, particularly George Gilbert, advocated for offensive war to prevent this republican de-professionalization, as all parties agreed that only a disciplined and professional army could prosecute an offensive war (130).
• Prior to the Dreyfus Affair, France had a relatively healthy military-civil relationship. The military was managed by civilians, like Leon Gambetta and Charles de Freycinet, with a strong respect for the military and its needs. They created convinced the military to accept 3-year service, while backing it in appropriations and discipline issues, and drafted compromise plans that mixed offense and defense (129-131). 
• The Dreyfus Affair destroyed the trust that had existed between the army and the civilian government. The republicans saw the Affair as evidence that the army had not adapted to progressive norms and did not respond to civilian authority, while the army saw it as intrusive interference in their internal affairs (131).
• The new Radical government appointed Louis Andre as War Minister, who appointed new commanders based on their politics, limited the disciplinary powers of officers, reduced conscription to two years, and demanded that reservists play a larger role in military plans (131).
• Faced with pressure from Minister Andre, military officers -- especially the 'Young Turk' group around Colonel Louis Loyzeaux de Grandmaison -- began to readopt George Gilbert's plans for an extremely offensive military doctrine based on unrelenting offense and a prioritization of professional soldiers over reservists (132).
• General Joffre and other senior leaders used the plans of the 'Young Turks' to attack the plans of General Victor-Constant Michel, the commander-in-chief appointed by the Radical government. Using Colonel de Grandmaison's offensive plans, General Joffre denigrated General Michel's plans for a defensive line along the Belgian border using reservists and succeeded in having him dismissed in 1911 (132).
• After succeeding General Michel as commander-in-chief in 1911, General Joffre successfully lobbied for the return for 3-year service in 1913 and institutionalized the idea of unlimited offense within the French general staff (132).
• Between 1910 and 1912, Russia abandoned its previous strategy of defense and adopted a strategy based on simultaneous offenses toward Germany and Austria-Hungary. This shift to offense made sense as Russia's military grew in strength and Russian planners knew that Germany would direct the majority of its forces against France (133). 
• An attack on either Germany or Austria-Hungary would have made military sense, but Russia instead supported two simultaneous offenses without properly supporting either. This was the result of the fact that both General Yuri Danilov of the general staff, who wanted to attack Germany, and General Mixail Alekseyev and other regional commanders, who wanted to attack Austria, had strong political connections. To sideline neither, both plans were adopted (133).
• This division between the two commanders reflected not only their bureaucratic positions, as General Alekseyev was responsible for managing the Austrian front while General Danilov oversaw the tightening of the alliance with France, but also their personal inclinations, as Yuri Danilov had wanted to fight Germany and Mixail Alekseyev had wanted to fight Austria-Hungary since before their appointments to the relevant positions (134).
• General Danilov's plans reflected a pessimistic view of Russian capabilities, as he did not believe that Russia could compete against Germany without major French assistance. This motivated his 1910 plan to adopt a purely defensive strategy and his 1913 plan to attack Germany in the hope that they could prevent their French ally being knocked out of the war. General Alekseyev had none of this doubts and believed that the Russian army could easily beat the Austrians and continue to face Germany (134-135).
• General Alekseyev's plan received support from the majority of operational commanders and Grand Duke Nikolai, while General Danilov's plan was endorsed by the commander of the East Prussian front; General Yakov Jilinskiy, who created the arrangements with General Joffre; and the general staff, whose members were generally disdainful of the capability of their officers or soldiers to do anything correctly (135).
• Regional commanders overwhelmingly supported General Alekseyev's plans because they provided for an offensive over flat terrain. General Danilov's plans, on the other hand, either had no clear objectives, as in the case of a 1910 defensive strategy, or demanded difficult maneuvers over difficult terrain against a well-defended enemy, as in the case of his 1913 plan for an invasion of East Prussia (134).
• The division of General Danilov's forces into two pincers during his attack on East Prussia, the decision that ultimately led to their defeat, is likely the result of his belief that rapid victory over Germany was needed to prevent the fall of France. Under unrealistic time pressure, risky maneuvers, like the pincer movement, were deemed necessary (136).
• Within the international system, offensive strategies tend to support the development of other offensive strategies, and likewise, defense produces defense. This is because military staffs tend to draw on the same limited pool of source and reference materials, meaning that doctrine by one group becomes distributed and read by a wider group of military officers cross several countries (137, 141).
• The adoption of an offensive or defensive doctrine by one country also leads to its spread because militaries will emulate others that they respect. This follows the logic of, 'well if they're doing it, it must be a good idea' (137-138).
• A tense international environment, like the one produced by numerous aggressive wars, also bred the adoption of offensive military doctrine, as it means states are more likely to listen to the military since they believe that war is likely. Moreover, the more likely a future war appears, the more willing politicians are to endorse preemptive war (138).
• States can provoke aggression and offensive arms races in the international system either through engaging in aggressive activities, as Germany did in Morocco in 1905 and Austria-Hungary did in Bosnia in 1909; by increasing their military capacities, whether for offense or defense, as Russia did in the 1880s; or by appearing to weak to pose a credible threat, as Belgium was in 1914 (138-139).
• The solution to avoid war is, therefore, to appear neither weak nor aggressive. This can be done by strengthening national defensive capabilities in a way that is clearly not for aggression; France did this successfully in the 1880s and 1890s (140). 
• Some people, like Alfred von Schlieffen, will already be aggressive regardless of the technological or international conditions. This was demonstrated when, even during the 1890s, when other staff officers, like Helmuth Johannes von Moltke, saw both Russia and France as too well defended, General von Schlieffen continued to endorse a strategy of radical offense (140).
• Soviet military doctrine emphasizes offense and the importance of the initiative and striking first in military confrontations, and doubts the ability of balancing, even in nuclear weapons, to prevent war. This attitude is adopted despite the destruction that will necessarily result from nuclear war (141-142). Doubt this because sources are unclear, so it not known which Soviet source is being used, as limited examples come from 1950s or early 1960s.
• The political establishment of the Soviet Union endorses these attitudes, often coated in Marxist-Leninist ideology. Military officers claim that Vladimir Lenin would have supported preemptive strikes and that Mixail Frunze supported constant offense as an extension of proletariat revolution (142).
• Soviet civilian leaders, from Georgy Malenkov to Dmitriy Ustinov, have repeatedly rejected the idea of nuclear war being winnable and denounced plans for a total war. Part of this was been because of budgetary reasons, as a concentration on mutually assured destruction [MAD] allows for a limited military budget (142-143).
• The military, as represented by Chief of Staff Nikolai Ogarkov, had advocated the opposite, claiming that US nuclear buildup is truly threatening, that nuclear war is winnable with acceptable losses, and that further military spending is therefore necessary (143).
• The author speculates that the doctrinal dispute between General Ogarkov and General Ustinov has its roots in budgetary disputes, as did the split between military and civilian authority in France at the turn of the 20th Century. Whether nuclear war is viewed as winnable or unwinnable, and thus whether or not offensive doctrines are endorsed, has major effects on the future Soviet military budget (143-144).
• The offensive military doctrine of the Soviet army may pose limitations on the diplomatic options available to Soviet leadership, as they could lack the ability to engage in limited escalation short of conflict. However, successful escalation and de-escalation under the Xruschev and Brejnev administration seems to prove this false (144).