War and the Engineers

Do some technologies provoke war? Do others promote peace? Offense-defense theory contends that technological change is an important cause of conflict: leaders will be tempted to launch wars when they believe innovation favors attackers over...

Keir A. Lieber is Associate Professor of Political Science, Faculty Fellow at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and Faculty Fellow at the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Scholars and strategists steeped in the history of costly wars have leapt at ideas that offer technological fixes to prevent these tragedies. Hopes have been raised that with proper planning and regulation, countries can configure military capabilities in ways that give decisive advantages to defensive military strategies and thus channel conflict into peaceful competition. Unfortunately, Keir A. Lieber goes a long way toward demolishing these hopes. He shows how seldom military innovations create clear and consistent advantages for defense and reminds political scientists that political incentives remain the driving force in decisions for war or peace.

Stephen Biddle, Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, author of Military Power:

Keir A. Lieber's War and the Engineers challenges one of modern strategic studies' most important body of ideas—offense-defense theory—at its intellectual core: does technology really have the military and political effects theorists so often attribute to it? His resounding 'no' will be both controversial and influential, and will play a central role in not just the scholarly literature but also the defense policy debate for years to come. It is essential reading for anyone who cares about war's conduct, outcomes, and political effects.