著者

今野 茂充 Shigemitsu KONNO

出版者

東洋英和女学院大学大学院

雑誌

東洋英和大学院紀要 = The Journal of the Graduate School of Toyo Eiwa University (ISSN:13497715)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.9, pp.21-41, 2013-03-15 (Released:2013-07-08)

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The debate on the origins of the First World War remains one of the most contested issues in the study of International History and International Relations (IR). Considering that almost a century has passed since the outbreak of the war, it is remarkable that the latest historiography, based on newly available primary sources, can still revitalize the debate and undermine some of the orthodoxinterpretations of the origins of the war. The controversy over the share of responsibilities for the outbreak of the war is typical of this trend. Instead of excessively focusing on Germany as the single prime mover in 1914, many recent historical researches consider a reapportionment of responsibilities among the European great powers for starting the Great War. Taking recent developments into account, this article seeks to examine and evaluate the role of Russia in the origins of the war from a theoretical perspective. The first section of the article traces the development of tensions between Russia and the Central Powers. The second section examines whether major IR theories, such as the offense-defense theory and the preventive war theory, can apply to the Russia's case from the defeat of Russo-Japanese war to the outbreak of the First World War. This article does not intend to demonstrate that Russia should bear the sole responsibility forstarting the First World War. However, even this brief study proves convincingly that Russia played a greater role on the outbreak of the First World War than is generally acknowledged in the recent literature of IR theories.