By Lutz Unterseher, guest publication, 01 January 2026. ➪ see full-text: PDF
This essay argues that wars do not result from immutable human nature but from political motives, cultural dispositions, and calculations of military opportunity. Wars are, therefore, preventable. The essay presents a succinct causal model of war’s outbreak.
The formal causal argument:
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War’s outbreak is treated as the dependent variable; the independent variable is a mix of expansionist or preventive motives and a supportive war culture that glorifies offensive action and soldierly virtues (the “cult of the offensive”).
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Because such motives and cultures often do not lead to war, a further “sufficient condition” is posited: leaders must judge that a rapid victory is feasible, casualties acceptable, and domestic opposition manageable, typically by identifying structural vulnerabilities or “open flanks” in the opponent’s posture.
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This feasibility variable is an intermediate link between motives/culture and war and is filtered through perceptions often distorted by ideology, institutional dysfunction, or poor intelligence.
Empirical illustrations of opportunity and miscalculation:
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Drawing on John Mearsheimer’s study of deterrence failure, the text notes that conventional deterrence often fails when states concentrate on offensive or counteroffensive preparations and neglect robust territorial defense, thereby offering exploitable weak points.
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The German offensive through the Ardennes in 1940 exemplifies this: France’s incomplete Maginot Line and the misdeployment of its most modern forces created an open flank that German armored units exploited, enabling a rapid breakthrough.
Policy lesson: defense posture and gendered perceptions:
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The author’s policy inference is that states should avoid inviting attack by concentrating forces for offensives and instead establish “defensive control of space”: dispersed, resilient, terrain‑using dispositions that leave no open flanks and sap an intruder’s speed and momentum, an idea linked to Confidence‑Building Defense concepts.
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Such structurally deterrent postures may be undervalued because of the gendered coding of offense as active and initiative‑rich masculinity, versus the coding of defense as inactive and passive femininity, leading offensive‑minded and sexist elites to discount the real capacity of defensive systems to frustrate attacks.