Political Science

On the August of 1914, after several years of increased hostilities and tension among the powers of Europe, mainly divided into two blocs that were very powerful, a conflict started that would begin like a local conflict but later spread engulfing the entire European continent. This was a conflict whose magnitude had not been witnessed in mankinds history and which led to the loss of lives of millions of people as well as the downfall of the prevailing order of the world.  On the exact cause of the WWI is a matter of debate among the past and the present historians. There are however two major causes that can be argued, the first is the developing opposition of the nationalist towards the imperial control. The nationalist opposition was mainly evident in the region of Balkan, friction between the empires of Hungarian-Austria and the nationalist of Slavic whom the Russians were supporting. The second cause of this war was the great imperial and economic competition between the main European powers particularly between France, Germany, Britain and other nations in Europe. Alongside the causes of the WWI, are theories that attempts to provide a theoretical approach as to what exactly caused this war (Joll, 2000).

Theories on the origins of WWI
The Marxist theory is one of the greatest theories that explain the origins of WWI it is a quasi economic theory. It suggests that the first world conflict was primarily caused by intense competition of markets and resources among the great European powers. This theory attributes the beginning of this war to imperialism. Nations such as France and UK accumulated lots of wealth towards the end of the nineteenth century via the enormous control they had on foreign resources, territories, people and markets. Other empires such as Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Italy were all hopeful in doing well like UK and France. The conflicting ambitions among the European powers created lots of tensions among themselves. Furthermore, the natural resources of Europe were getting exhausted at an alarming rate. The rapid exhaustion of natural resources across the European continent started to gradually disturb the balance of trade and also made nations to be much more eager in seeking new territories with abundant natural resources so as to accumulate even more wealth for themselves. Extreme rivalry grew among these rising economic powers as well as the great powers that were incumbent (Strachan, 2003).

The Marxist theory further suggests that the enmity among the great powers of Europe were aggravated in the 1880s as a result of the scramble for various colonies which brought most countries in Asia and Africa under the rule of the Europeans in the subsequent quarter century. Scramble for colonies created a lot of Anglo-Russian and Anglo-French crises and tensions which avoided a British alliance. Bismarck was against the idea of empires overseas, but practiced a colonial policy of courting political support domestically. This began Anglo-German tension because the acquisitions German had achieved in Pacific and Africa threatened to interrupt upon the British commercial and strategic interests (Mombauer, 2001).

The Marxist theory offers adequate facts as far as the origin of the first global conflict is concerned. It explains how the imbalance of power within Europe led to increased tensions and enmity among the main players in Europe that would eventually culminate into the worst conflict yet to be witnessed in mankinds history. The capacity to control markets, people, foreign resources and territories has been identified by this theory to be the major origins of this war. As the European nations pursued their interests of gathering as much control powers as possible, enmity and tensions started to build up in the continent and the European nations became more prepared to defend their interests both within the European continent and outside. The Marxist theory provides comprehensive explanations concerning the events that led to the war and is therefore acceptable (Joll, 2000).

The second theory that attempts to explain the origins of the WWI is the behavioral theory. The proponents of this theory argue that people are inherently violent and this was the case in the WWI and several other wars that have taken place in history. In the case of the first global conflict, this particular theory suggests that the European people from various nations were driven by nationalism to perceive their nations to be much more superior to others and could therefore defeat them easily in a war. Virtually all the European nations and their citizens had a behavioral attitude that had the tendency of suggesting that they were the most powerful and the best armed in the continent. This prompted different nations within the Europe continent to look for opportunities to prove that they were actually the super powers not only of Europe but of the entire world (Copeland, 2001).

At the beginning of the war, most of the European nations believed that the conflict would only last for a short period of time after crashing their enemies through the use of superior weapons on their enemies. This was the mentality that was possessed by each and every European nation. However, to their surprise their opponents were not as weak as previously assumed and this made the conflict to last for a much longer time. At the same time, since the European nations had a lot of control on other nations around the world and they had made such nations to fear them since the Europeans were much powerful, they had to participate in the war in order to support their masters. Again, these nations which were in one way or another under the rule of the Europeans believed that their respective European powers were very strong and they could not be defeated by other European nations in a conflict. As a result most of these nations eventually supported their European colonizers and thus made the war to eventually involve much more nations than it was the case at the start of the war (Strachan, 2003).

This theory does not provide sufficient facts on the actual origins of the first global conflict since the contribution of the specific behaviors of the European people is not comprehensively discussed in the theory. It however sheds some light on the events that triggered the war and thus contains some facts that were responsible for bringing about the worst war yet to be witnessed. I therefore do not fully accept the behavioral theory as a good theory to refer to when determining the origins of the WWI. It can only be used to explain the events that eventually triggered the conflict and not those that led to the conflict (Joll, 2000).

Economic theories are also used to explain the events that led to the WWI in the beginning of the twentieth century. In this case, the WWI is viewed as a development of increased economic competition within an international system whose competitiveness was increasing. According to the economic theories, the first global conflict started as a chase of natural resources and markets by the European nations in order to accumulate as much wealth as possible. The economic theories suggest that as economic competition among the European nations intensified, so was the rivalry between them. This implies that more economic development among the European powers made the possibilities of having a major conflict almost inevitable among these nations. Therefore, increased competition among the European nations is one of the major factors that explain the origins of the first global conflict (Copeland, 2001).

The explanations provided by the economic theories on the factors that led to the first global conflict are sound and have sufficient facts that support them. This is due to the fact that enmity and rivalry among the European nations increased as economic competition increased. The economic theories are therefore acceptable in the provision of a theoretical approach on the origins of the first global conflict. Furthermore, since the natural resources that are explained in this theory include those that did not belong to Europe, then it becomes even much clearer why the conflict did not only affect the European nations but also the rest of the world (Joll, 2000).

The Marxist theory is the best among the two other theories that have been discussed since it is very comprehensive in the manner it approaches and deals with all the facts that resulted into the first global conflict. It provides a detailed theoretical approach on the factors that led to the conflict, and puts more weight on the exact role that was played by the European nations. The economics theories also offer good explanations on the economic aspects of Europe that eventually brought about the conflict. It is ranked second after the Marxist theory due to its shortcoming of assuming that the conflict was only caused by economic competition among the European nations and hence ignores the role played by all the other factors bringing about the conflict. The behavioral theory is ranked last among the theories that have been discussed in this paper. This theory does not explain how the behaviors of the European people and nations contributed to the events that led the conflict. At best, this theory only explains how the behavior of the European people triggered the conflict when all the other factors had made the conflict inevitable (Copeland, 2001).

Conclusion
The three theories discussed above provide a hypothetical approach on the origins of the first global conflict. They explain how in a theoretical manner how the European nations and people undertook several actions and made many decisions that made the occurrence of a major conflict inevitable. Just like in the case of other theories, the ones discussed above only provide a theoretical framework of the causes of the WWI and not the actual origins of the conflict. This implies that they have taken some assumptions that might give some misleading information and conclusions. Without such assumptions it could have been very difficult for various scholars to develop such theories and make them ideal for the case under consideration that is, the origins of the first global conflict.