Weighing the Causes of Global Conflict
Relative significance, again
- Explain the relative significance of the causes of global conflict in the period 1900 to the present.
- Same skill as 6.8: choose a criterion, rank, and defend the ranking.
- The difference is the material — this time you are weighing causes, not effects.
The first decision in a causes-ranking essay is...
The causes change weight depending on the frame.
The causes the unit has supplied
- Imperial competition (7.2 and 7.6), nationalism (7.2), the alliance system (7.2), the unsustainable settlement (7.6).
- Economic crisis (7.4 and 7.6), and the rise of fascist and totalitarian regimes, which the CED marks especially (7.6).
- Six candidates, and one of them already carries the CED's own emphasis.
Select all the criteria this lesson offers.
Name the criterion, and the ranking becomes an argument.
Two wars, or one chain?
- The CED gives the second war a cause that is the first war's ending, which invites a single-chain reading.
- A ranking that treats the wars as one sequence can rank the settlement very highly.
- A ranking that treats them separately will usually put regime type first for 1939 and imperial competition first for 1914.
Which cause, and from which war?
Sort each candidate cause by where the unit places it.
The CED's own emphasis falls on the rise of fascist and ____ regimes.
Quoting the CED's especially is a legitimate move in this essay.
Say first whether the two wars are one chain or two events. The CED makes the first war's settlement a cause of the second, so both readings are available — but a ranking that switches between them halfway through cannot be defended, because the causes change weight depending on the frame.
Select all the unit review statements available as evidence.
The other two belong to units 4 and 6.
Two review statements to use
- Rapid advances in science and technology altered the understanding of the universe and the natural world and led to advances in communication, transportation, industry, agriculture and medicine.
- Peoples and states around the world challenged the existing political and social order in varying ways, leading to unprecedented worldwide conflicts.
- The second is the CED's own summary cause: challenge to the existing order is the general form of every specific cause in the unit.
Put the causes-ranking routine in order.
The frame comes first because it changes what the causes weigh.
A causes-ranking routine
- Say whether you are treating 1914 and 1939 as one chain or two events, in the first sentence.
- Choose a criterion — necessity, sufficiency, or reach — and name it.
- Rank three causes with evidence, then concede the strongest case for a different order.
Criterion: necessity — would the conflict have happened without this cause? On that measure the rise of aggressive regimes ranks first for 1939, because the settlement and the Depression describe grievance without an actor. The strongest case against: without the settlement, those regimes may never have found their audience.
Relative significance means ranking causes with a stated criterion. The unit supplies imperial competition, nationalism, the alliance system, the unsustainable settlement, economic crisis and the rise of fascist and totalitarian regimes, which the CED itself marks especially. Decide first whether 1914 and 1939 are one chain or two events.