How the Research Is Empirically Examined 97
of forcing their will. Two of the defeated powers, Germany and Japan,
lost their great power status because of their total defeat in the war. The
other victorious great powers, particularly Great Britain and France, had
exhausted themselves and also lost their polar power status in the system.
The multipolar system of 1849–1870 was relatively stable, and the wars
fought during it and their lethality were relatively limited. The multipolar
system of 1910–1945, in contrast, was one of the most unstable in human
history, and the danger of multipolarity manifested in it prominently. In
that period, two of the bloodiest wars in human history, the First and the
Second World Wars, were fought, as well as a large number of major and
minor wars.
Many parallels may be drawn between the Crimean War and the First
World War. Both wars started as a local conflict between a great power and
a small power—Russia and Turkey in 1853 and Austro-Hungary and Ser-
bia in 1914—and both expanded to a major war in the case of the Crimean
War and a central war in the case of the First World War in which other
great powers were involved.
There is also similarity between the factors that led to the outbreak of
both world wars. Each of them broke out for its own unique reasons, but
in both cases, the leaders of countries acted rationally for maximizing their
own countries’ interests. However, the multipolarity of the international
system led to two prominent phenomena. On the one hand, it reduced
the range of possibilities that the countries had, and on the other hand, it
forced them to choose certain options, which in many cases conflicted with
their combined interests.
Before both world wars, German power could have withstood the resis-
tance if other European countries had been able to balance it. In such a
case, Germany might have been deterred and the wars averted. Despite
that, the powers failed twice: before 1914 and before 1939.^91 This double
failure, which led to the two bloodiest wars in human history, raises great
doubts concerning the ability to explain their outbreak based on the man-
ner of conduct of countries. In contrast, according to the current study, the
cause of their outbreak lay in the multipolarity of the system before both
cases. In both cases, the multipolarity formed conditions that led to miscal-
culations that in turn stimulated Germany’s aggressiveness.
STABILITY OF INTERNATIONAL SYSTEMS
IN BIPOLAR SYSTEM
Bipolar systems are the most peaceful of the three possible international
systems. The existence of just two superpowers constituting bipolar sys-
tems minimizes the number of existing bipartite conflicts and reduces the
potential for the development of conflicts that may deteriorate into war.
In these systems, there is only one relationship throughout which a war