Deck 10: Technology and the Changing Face of War

Question 1

Which of the following constitutes a step toward total war?

A) The declining role of ideology in global politics.
B) The introduction of precision-guided "smart" bombs.
C) The breakdown of norms protecting innocent civilians.
D) Growing corruption in developing countries.

Answer 1

C

Question 2

Who was the most eloquent European opponent of absolute war?

A) Napoléon Bonaparte.
B) Karl Maria von Clausewitz.
C) Otto von Bismarck.
D) Maximilien Robespierre.

Answer 2

B

Question 3

What system-level factor increased the level of violence in war?

A) Spreading nationalism among political leaders.
B) The triumph of fascism and Nazism in Italy and Germany respectively.
C) The Bolshevik Revolution.
D) Industrialization.

Answer 3

D

Question 4

What is unique about weapons of mass destruction?

A) They make it possible, for the first time, to destroy cities .
B) They can be used to target innocent civilians.
C) They permit the milling of more enemy soldiers than ever before.
D) They are inherently indiscriminate.

Question 5

Which of the following most closely resembles the ideas of Karl Maria von Clausewitz?

A) War is the "means" and politics the "end."
B) War and politics are independent of each other.
C) Military necessity should determine policy.
D) War is the "end" and politics the "means."

Question 6

What did Clausewitz fear would raise the level of violence in warfare?

A) Europe's reaction to the French Revolution.
B) Napoléon's invasion of Russia.
C) Nationalism and large conscript armies.
D) Industrialization.

Question 7

What was the meaning of "victory" for Clausewitz?

A) The surrender of the enemy's army.
B) Realization of the political objectives that gave rise to the war in the first place.
C) Occupation of the enemy's capital city.
D) Achieving the political aims that had evolved in the course of the war.

Question 8

Which of the following represented what Clausewitz feared and counseled against?

A) The generals in World War One dictating the timing of military mobilization.
B) Hitler's decision to invade Poland in 1939?
C) Chamberlain's effort to appease Hitler before World War Two.
D) The strategy of mutual assured destruction during the Cold War.

Question 9

Which of the following was not a consequence of industrialization?

A) It increased the production and standardization of armaments.
B) It greatly increased the employment of women outside the home.
C) It made factories legitimate targets of enemy attack.
D) It made the home front as important to the war effort as armies in the field.

Question 10

Which of the following committed terrorist acts in the nineteenth century?

A) The Assassins.
B) The Zealots.
C) The anarchists.
D) The Russian government.

Question 11

In what war was the impact of industrialization first evident?

A) The Crimean War.
B) World War One.
C) The American Civil War.
D) The Franco-Prussian War.

Question 12

To what school of theory does Clausewitz belong?

A) Realism.
B) Liberalism.
C) Constructivism.
D) Marxism.

Question 13

Following its defeat of Poland in 1939, what was Nazi Germany's next conquest?

A) Norway and Denmark.
B) France.
C) Yugoslavia.
D) The Netherlands.

Question 14

After the defeat of France, from where did the British army have to retreat in order to get home?

A) Le Havre.
B) Ostend.
C) Boulogne.
D) Dunkirk.

Question 15

What was the Blitz?

A) Germany's invasion of Russia in 1941.
B) German bombing of Britain in 1940-1941.
C) The US use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.
D) The Soviet use of tanks in the Battle of Kursk in 1943.

Question 16

Who commanded America's island-hopping campaign against Japan in World War Two?

A) Douglas MacArthur.
B) George Patton.
C) Chester Nimitz.
D) Ernest King.

Question 17

Who were the World War II kamikaze?

A) Japanese pilots who committed suicidal attacks.
B) Russian partisans behind German lines.
C) British commandos landing in Normandy on D-Day.
D) The bodyguards protecting Chiang Kai-shek.

Question 18

What technological innovation that made it possible to have longer and larger wars was invented by a French chef in 1795?

A) Motorized transport.
B) Canning of food.
C) Refrigerated iceboxes.
D) Freeze-dried meat.

Question 19

What was invented by the American Joseph Glidden that proved very important in World War One?

A) The machine gun.
B) Smokeless powder.
C) The submarine.
D) Barbed wire.

Question 20

What was invented by the American Hiram Maxim that proved very important in World War One?

A) The machine gun.
B) Smokeless powder.
C) The submarine.
D) Barbed wire.

Question 21

What Chinese innovation enabled mounted warriors to use hand-held weapons more effectively than ever before?

A) Stirrups.
B) The saddle.
C) Spurs.
D) Reins.

Question 22

What general was among the first to recognize the possibilities of a war of attrition in an industrialized world?

A) Douglas Haig.
B) Ulysses S. Grant.
C) Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
D) Joseph Joffre.

Question 23

In planning for World War One, what wars did most generals think would provide the best model for what would happen?

A) The Napoléonic Wars.
B) The Russo-Japanese and American Civil War.
C) The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars.
D) The Crimean and Boer Wars.

Question 24

What did French strategists believe would determine the outcome of World War One?

A) Manpower.
B) Defensive fortifications.
C) Firepower.
D) The moral dimension.

Question 25

What weapon in World War One terrorized troops in the trenches?

A) The machine gun.
B) The tank.
C) Poison gas.
D) Submarines.

Question 26

What did most military leaders in 1914 think would be the decisive factor in World War One?

A) The production of artillery shells.
B) The speed of military mobilization.
C) The size of navies.
D) The interdiction of enemy supplies.

Question 27

What form of terrorism was pioneered in Sri Lanka by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam?

A) Improvised explosive devices.
B) Sarin gas.
C) Suicide bombings.
D) Barrel bombs.

Question 28

What German policy, more than any other, caused America to enter World War One?

A) The invasion of neutral Belgium.
B) Unrestricted submarine warfare.
C) The use of Zeppelins to bomb Great Britain.
D) The refusal to elaborate war aims.

Question 29

What British vessel, sunk in 1915 with the loss of many American lives, produced revulsion against Germany in the United States?

A) The Lusitania.
B) The Athenia.
C) The Titanic.
D) The Andrea Doria.

Question 30

What town, bombed by German aircraft in the Spanish civil war, became the subject of a painting by Pablo Picasso?

A) Toledo.
B) Granada.
C) Cádiz.
D) Guernica.

Question 31

In preparing for World War Two, what was the French response to the dominance of defensive over offensive war in World War One?

A) A line of fortification from Switzerland to Belgium.
B) The concentration of tanks in special units.
C) A strategy combining tanks and tactical aircraft.
D) The production of large strategic bombers.

Question 32

What did Billy Mitchell try to show military planners during the period between World Wars I and II?

A) Cities could not be defended from air attack.
B) Mobile tank forces promised rapid victory.
C) Strategic bombing of enemy industries could determine a war's outcome.
D) Battleships were vulnerable to air attack.

Question 33

On what city was the second atomic bomb dropped?

A) Tokyo.
B) Hiroshima.
C) Yokahama.
D) Nagasaki.

Question 34

What military strategist, writing about irregular warfare, declared "the skillful leader subdues the enemy's troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field"?

A) Karl Maria von Clausewitz.
B) Giulio Douhet.
C) Antoine-Henri Jomini.
D) Sun Tzu

Question 35

What is the great advantage of "smart" weapons?

A) Destructiveness.
B) Accuracy.
C) Mobility.
D) Range.

Question 36

In what war did the United States introduce the use of precision-guided weapons?

A) The Persian Gulf War.
B) The Kosovo War.
C) The invasion of Afghanistan.
D) The invasion of Iraq.

Question 37

What is at the heart of the current American strategy utilizing high technology in military affairs?

A) Enhanced destructive capability.
B) Quality and quantity of information.
C) Rapid reaction time to enemy attacks.
D) Ability to withstand an enemy attack and retaliate afterwards.

Question 38

Which of the following increased deterrence credibility during the Cold War?

A) Sputnik.
B) Submarine-launched missiles.
C) Long-range bombers.
D) Ballistic missiles.

Question 39

Who was responsible for the 988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbee, Scotland?

A) Muammar Qaddafi.
B) Osama bin Laden.
C) Saddam Hussein.
D) Ahmed Yassin.

Question 40

Which of the following is not characteristic of contemporary terrorists?

A) They seek to discriminate between innocent civilians and officials in countries that they attack.
B) Many are prepared to commit suicide for their cause.
C) They make increasing use of modern technologies like the Internet.
D) Their level of fanaticism is higher than that of earlier terrorists.

Question 41

Which of the following countries has used poison gas against its own citizens?

A) Iran and Saudi Arabia.
B) Iraq and Syria.
C) Yemen and Iran.
D) Iraq and Pakistan.

Question 42

Which one of the following terrorist groups is located in Somalia states?

A) Boko Haram.
B) The Islamic State.
C) Al Shabab.
D) Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Question 43

What was the "Gulag"?

A) The system of Soviet prison camps.
B) A code name used by Germany's Red Army Faction.
C) The name of a terrorist group seeking Basque independence from Spain.
D) A Palestinian terrorist group that specialized in kidnapping Westerners.

Question 44

What group was responsible for killing eleven Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany?

A) Hamas.
B) Hezbollah.
C) The Palestine Liberation Front.
D) Black September.

Question 45

Which of the following was assassinated by anarchists?

A) Tsar Nicholas II.
B) President William McKinley.
C) Andrew Carnegie.
D) Emperor Haile Selassie.

Question 46

What country became a sanctuary for Islamic militants in the 1990s?

A) Iran.
B) Afghanistan.
C) Egypt.
D) Indonesia.

Question 47

Which of the following was influenced greatly by the ideas of Mao Zedong?

A) Yasser Arafat.
B) Fulgencio Batista.
C) Ernesto (Ché) Guevara.
D) Osama bin Laden.

Question 48

Which of the following is a state-level explanation for intrastate war?

A) Ethnic hatred.
B) Great power intervention.
C) Relative poverty compared to other countries.
D) Power-hungry, corrupt, and greedy leaders.

Question 49

What security policy was introduced by America in the 1960s that threatened that if its allies were attacked, the West would respond in a "balanced and proportional way" short of nuclear war?

A) Forward defense.
B) Mutual Assured Destruction.
C) Massive retaliation.
D) Flexible response.

Question 50

Which of the following is an effective way of managing and ending civil wars?

A) Preventing foreign intervention.
B) Encouraging adversaries to live in the same communities and thereby get to know one another.
C) Dividing political power among combatants.
D) Allowing enemies to keep separate militias for their own security.