It is not a class analysis of the fundamental causes of wars since 1700 and not a patch on Lenin's Socialism and War written in 1915.

 

However, Blainey's book is worth reading if for no other reason than to understand how extensive wars between nations in the development of capitalism and imperialism have been over the last four or more centuries.

 

In the Preface to the Fourth Edition, Blainey says that "most nations entered wars with an unjustified degree of optimism. Each of the opposing leaders expected victory- a result which was obviously impossible"

 

Here he is talking about war between two bourgeois nation states or what he calls "general wars" involving one block of nation states against another such as in World War 1 in 1914-18.

 

 

There are some surprises in the book. Blainey supports Lenin asking the question in 1914 of what did each country and class hope to gain from the First World War? Lenin answered that the advanced capitalist economies hoped to win new markets, colonies, profits and loot! Blainey agreed with Lenin that the Russian Tsar went to war to divert attention from the internal situation in Russia which Lenin and the Bolsheviks summed up with the demands for the Russian workers and peasants of Land, Peace and Bread.

 

Blainey goes on to say that after the Bolsheviks had won state power, Lenin correctly saw that contrary to the position of Trotsky, the prime task of the Bolshevik Party in 1918 was not to pursue war against a demanding Germany but to build up the newborn working-class state.

 

This is the only part of Blainey's book where he talks specifically about the class interests of workers within a nation state.

 

 

Blainey's final words in the Preface to the Fourth Edition of The Causes of War are "food for thought" given the unpredictable and dangerous actions of US imperialism and its Trump administration as we enter 2026

 

Blainey asks, "Since about 1990, when the Cold War ended, climate change has been widely viewed as the mightiest threat to humanity. But in the hierarchy of threats that we face, is a Third World War still the more dangerous?"

 

Blainey argues that while wars are inevitable based on the number of wars that have occurred since 1700, there are several factors that national leaders are strongly influenced by -

 

1. Military strength and ability to apply this strength efficiently in the likely theatre of war

2. Predictions of how outside nations will behave if war should occur

3. Perceptions of internal unity or discord in their own nation or in the land of the enemy

4. Knowledge or forgetfulness of the realities of suffering of war to the elites on whose behalf the war is initiated

5. Nationalism and ideology of the nation being attacked

6. State of the economy of the aggressor nation and its ability to sustain the kind of war envisaged

7. The personality and experience of these who shared in the decision to fight or not to fight

8. The vital role of intelligence and counterintelligence

 

Some of these points are relevant to the current situations today in the Middle East, Venezuela and the superpower rivalry between the US and China. 

 

Blainey's 8 factors do not specifically include the relative strengths of the working class and its allies in the nations initiating war or the nations under attack.

 

This is not surprising as Blainey is a conservative historian. Despite his conservative outlook, his book is worth reading.