essay world war 1

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World War I

By: History.com Editors

Updated: May 10, 2024 | Original: October 29, 2009

World War I, also known as the Great War, started in 1914 after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. His murder catapulted into a war across Europe that lasted until 1918. During the four-year conflict, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire (the Central Powers) fought against Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Romania, Canada, Japan and the United States (the Allied Powers). Thanks to new military technologies and the horrors of trench warfare, World War I saw unprecedented levels of carnage and destruction. By the time the war was over and the Allied Powers had won, more than 16 million people—soldiers and civilians alike—were dead.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand

Tensions had been brewing throughout Europe—especially in the troubled Balkan region of southeast Europe—for years before World War I actually broke out.

A number of alliances involving European powers, the Ottoman Empire , Russia and other parties had existed for years, but political instability in the Balkans (particularly Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina) threatened to destroy these agreements.

The spark that ignited World War I was struck in Sarajevo, Bosnia, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand —heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire—was shot to death along with his wife, Sophie, by the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914. Princip and other nationalists were struggling to end Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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The assassination of Franz Ferdinand set off a rapidly escalating chain of events: Austria-Hungary , like many countries around the world, blamed the Serbian government for the attack and hoped to use the incident as justification for settling the question of Serbian nationalism once and for all.

Kaiser Wilhelm II

Because mighty Russia supported Serbia, Austria-Hungary waited to declare war until its leaders received assurance from German leader Kaiser Wilhelm II that Germany would support their cause. Austro-Hungarian leaders feared that a Russian intervention would involve Russia’s ally, France, and possibly Great Britain as well.

On July 5, Kaiser Wilhelm secretly pledged his support, giving Austria-Hungary a so-called carte blanche, or “blank check” assurance of Germany’s backing in the case of war. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary then sent an ultimatum to Serbia, with such harsh terms as to make it almost impossible to accept.

World War I Begins

Convinced that Austria-Hungary was readying for war, the Serbian government ordered the Serbian army to mobilize and appealed to Russia for assistance. On July 28, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, and the tenuous peace between Europe’s great powers quickly collapsed.

Within a week, Russia, Belgium, France, Great Britain and Serbia had lined up against Austria-Hungary and Germany, and World War I had begun.

The Western Front

According to an aggressive military strategy known as the Schlieffen Plan (named for its mastermind, German Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen ), Germany began fighting World War I on two fronts, invading France through neutral Belgium in the west and confronting Russia in the east.

On August 4, 1914, German troops crossed the border into Belgium. In the first battle of World War I, the Germans assaulted the heavily fortified city of Liege , using the most powerful weapons in their arsenal—enormous siege cannons—to capture the city by August 15. The Germans left death and destruction in their wake as they advanced through Belgium toward France, shooting civilians and executing a Belgian priest they had accused of inciting civilian resistance. 

First Battle of the Marne

In the First Battle of the Marne , fought from September 6-9, 1914, French and British forces confronted the invading German army, which had by then penetrated deep into northeastern France, within 30 miles of Paris. The Allied troops checked the German advance and mounted a successful counterattack, driving the Germans back to the north of the Aisne River.

The defeat meant the end of German plans for a quick victory in France. Both sides dug into trenches , and the Western Front was the setting for a hellish war of attrition that would last more than three years.

Particularly long and costly battles in this campaign were fought at Verdun (February-December 1916) and the Battle of the Somme (July-November 1916). German and French troops suffered close to a million casualties in the Battle of Verdun alone.

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World War I Books and Art

The bloodshed on the battlefields of the Western Front, and the difficulties its soldiers had for years after the fighting had ended, inspired such works of art as “ All Quiet on the Western Front ” by Erich Maria Remarque and “ In Flanders Fields ” by Canadian doctor Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae . In the latter poem, McCrae writes from the perspective of the fallen soldiers:

Published in 1915, the poem inspired the use of the poppy as a symbol of remembrance.

Visual artists like Otto Dix of Germany and British painters Wyndham Lewis, Paul Nash and David Bomberg used their firsthand experience as soldiers in World War I to create their art, capturing the anguish of trench warfare and exploring the themes of technology, violence and landscapes decimated by war.

The Eastern Front

On the Eastern Front of World War I, Russian forces invaded the German-held regions of East Prussia and Poland but were stopped short by German and Austrian forces at the Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914.

Despite that victory, Russia’s assault forced Germany to move two corps from the Western Front to the Eastern, contributing to the German loss in the Battle of the Marne.

Combined with the fierce Allied resistance in France, the ability of Russia’s huge war machine to mobilize relatively quickly in the east ensured a longer, more grueling conflict instead of the quick victory Germany had hoped to win under the Schlieffen Plan .

Russian Revolution

From 1914 to 1916, Russia’s army mounted several offensives on World War I’s Eastern Front but was unable to break through German lines.

Defeat on the battlefield, combined with economic instability and the scarcity of food and other essentials, led to mounting discontent among the bulk of Russia’s population, especially the poverty-stricken workers and peasants. This increased hostility was directed toward the imperial regime of Czar Nicholas II and his unpopular German-born wife, Alexandra.

Russia’s simmering instability exploded in the Russian Revolution of 1917, spearheaded by Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks , which ended czarist rule and brought a halt to Russian participation in World War I.

Russia reached an armistice with the Central Powers in early December 1917, freeing German troops to face the remaining Allies on the Western Front.

America Enters World War I

At the outbreak of fighting in 1914, the United States remained on the sidelines of World War I, adopting the policy of neutrality favored by President Woodrow Wilson while continuing to engage in commerce and shipping with European countries on both sides of the conflict.

Neutrality, however, it was increasingly difficult to maintain in the face of Germany’s unchecked submarine aggression against neutral ships, including those carrying passengers. In 1915, Germany declared the waters surrounding the British Isles to be a war zone, and German U-boats sunk several commercial and passenger vessels, including some U.S. ships.

Widespread protest over the sinking by U-boat of the British ocean liner Lusitania —traveling from New York to Liverpool, England with hundreds of American passengers onboard—in May 1915 helped turn the tide of American public opinion against Germany. In February 1917, Congress passed a $250 million arms appropriations bill intended to make the United States ready for war.

Germany sunk four more U.S. merchant ships the following month, and on April 2 Woodrow Wilson appeared before Congress and called for a declaration of war against Germany.

Gallipoli Campaign

With World War I having effectively settled into a stalemate in Europe, the Allies attempted to score a victory against the Ottoman Empire, which entered the conflict on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914.

After a failed attack on the Dardanelles (the strait linking the Sea of Marmara with the Aegean Sea), Allied forces led by Britain launched a large-scale land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula in April 1915. The invasion also proved a dismal failure, and in January 1916 Allied forces staged a full retreat from the shores of the peninsula after suffering 250,000 casualties.

Did you know? The young Winston Churchill, then first lord of the British Admiralty, resigned his command after the failed Gallipoli campaign in 1916, accepting a commission with an infantry battalion in France.

British-led forces also combated the Ottoman Turks in Egypt and Mesopotamia , while in northern Italy, Austrian and Italian troops faced off in a series of 12 battles along the Isonzo River, located at the border between the two nations.

Battle of the Isonzo

The First Battle of the Isonzo took place in the late spring of 1915, soon after Italy’s entrance into the war on the Allied side. In the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, also known as the Battle of Caporetto (October 1917), German reinforcements helped Austria-Hungary win a decisive victory.

After Caporetto, Italy’s allies jumped in to offer increased assistance. British and French—and later, American—troops arrived in the region, and the Allies began to take back the Italian Front.

World War I at Sea

In the years before World War I, the superiority of Britain’s Royal Navy was unchallenged by any other nation’s fleet, but the Imperial German Navy had made substantial strides in closing the gap between the two naval powers. Germany’s strength on the high seas was also aided by its lethal fleet of U-boat submarines.

After the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915, in which the British mounted a surprise attack on German ships in the North Sea, the German navy chose not to confront Britain’s mighty Royal Navy in a major battle for more than a year, preferring to rest the bulk of its naval strategy on its U-boats.

The biggest naval engagement of World War I, the Battle of Jutland (May 1916) left British naval superiority on the North Sea intact, and Germany would make no further attempts to break an Allied naval blockade for the remainder of the war.

World War I Planes

World War I was the first major conflict to harness the power of planes. Though not as impactful as the British Royal Navy or Germany’s U-boats, the use of planes in World War I presaged their later, pivotal role in military conflicts around the globe.

At the dawn of World War I, aviation was a relatively new field; the Wright brothers took their first sustained flight just eleven years before, in 1903. Aircraft were initially used primarily for reconnaissance missions. During the First Battle of the Marne, information passed from pilots allowed the allies to exploit weak spots in the German lines, helping the Allies to push Germany out of France.

The first machine guns were successfully mounted on planes in June of 1912 in the United States, but were imperfect; if timed incorrectly, a bullet could easily destroy the propeller of the plane it came from. The Morane-Saulnier L, a French plane, provided a solution: The propeller was armored with deflector wedges that prevented bullets from hitting it. The Morane-Saulnier Type L was used by the French, the British Royal Flying Corps (part of the Army), the British Royal Navy Air Service and the Imperial Russian Air Service. The British Bristol Type 22 was another popular model used for both reconnaissance work and as a fighter plane.

Dutch inventor Anthony Fokker improved upon the French deflector system in 1915. His “interrupter” synchronized the firing of the guns with the plane’s propeller to avoid collisions. Though his most popular plane during WWI was the single-seat Fokker Eindecker, Fokker created over 40 kinds of airplanes for the Germans.

The Allies debuted the Handley-Page HP O/400, the first two-engine bomber, in 1915. As aerial technology progressed, long-range heavy bombers like Germany’s Gotha G.V. (first introduced in 1917) were used to strike cities like London. Their speed and maneuverability proved to be far deadlier than Germany’s earlier Zeppelin raids.

By the war’s end, the Allies were producing five times more aircraft than the Germans. On April 1, 1918, the British created the Royal Air Force, or RAF, the first air force to be a separate military branch independent from the navy or army. 

Second Battle of the Marne

With Germany able to build up its strength on the Western Front after the armistice with Russia, Allied troops struggled to hold off another German offensive until promised reinforcements from the United States were able to arrive.

On July 15, 1918, German troops launched what would become the last German offensive of the war, attacking French forces (joined by 85,000 American troops as well as some of the British Expeditionary Force) in the Second Battle of the Marne . The Allies successfully pushed back the German offensive and launched their own counteroffensive just three days later.

After suffering massive casualties, Germany was forced to call off a planned offensive further north, in the Flanders region stretching between France and Belgium, which was envisioned as Germany’s best hope of victory.

The Second Battle of the Marne turned the tide of war decisively towards the Allies, who were able to regain much of France and Belgium in the months that followed.

The Harlem Hellfighters and Other All-Black Regiments

By the time World War I began, there were four all-Black regiments in the U.S. military: the 24th and 25th Infantry and the 9th and 10th Cavalry. All four regiments comprised of celebrated soldiers who fought in the Spanish-American War and American-Indian Wars , and served in the American territories. But they were not deployed for overseas combat in World War I. 

Blacks serving alongside white soldiers on the front lines in Europe was inconceivable to the U.S. military. Instead, the first African American troops sent overseas served in segregated labor battalions, restricted to menial roles in the Army and Navy, and shutout of the Marines, entirely. Their duties mostly included unloading ships, transporting materials from train depots, bases and ports, digging trenches, cooking and maintenance, removing barbed wire and inoperable equipment, and burying soldiers.

Facing criticism from the Black community and civil rights organizations for its quotas and treatment of African American soldiers in the war effort, the military formed two Black combat units in 1917, the 92nd and 93rd Divisions . Trained separately and inadequately in the United States, the divisions fared differently in the war. The 92nd faced criticism for their performance in the Meuse-Argonne campaign in September 1918. The 93rd Division, however, had more success. 

With dwindling armies, France asked America for reinforcements, and General John Pershing , commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, sent regiments in the 93 Division to over, since France had experience fighting alongside Black soldiers from their Senegalese French Colonial army. The 93 Division’s 369 regiment, nicknamed the Harlem Hellfighters , fought so gallantly, with a total of 191 days on the front lines, longer than any AEF regiment, that France awarded them the Croix de Guerre for their heroism. More than 350,000 African American soldiers would serve in World War I in various capacities.

Toward Armistice

By the fall of 1918, the Central Powers were unraveling on all fronts.

Despite the Turkish victory at Gallipoli, later defeats by invading forces and an Arab revolt that destroyed the Ottoman economy and devastated its land, and the Turks signed a treaty with the Allies in late October 1918.

Austria-Hungary, dissolving from within due to growing nationalist movements among its diverse population, reached an armistice on November 4. Facing dwindling resources on the battlefield, discontent on the homefront and the surrender of its allies, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice on November 11, 1918, ending World War I.

Treaty of Versailles

At the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, Allied leaders stated their desire to build a post-war world that would safeguard itself against future conflicts of such a devastating scale.

Some hopeful participants had even begun calling World War I “the War to End All Wars.” But the Treaty of Versailles , signed on June 28, 1919, would not achieve that lofty goal.

Saddled with war guilt, heavy reparations and denied entrance into the League of Nations , Germany felt tricked into signing the treaty, having believed any peace would be a “peace without victory,” as put forward by President Wilson in his famous Fourteen Points speech of January 1918.

As the years passed, hatred of the Versailles treaty and its authors settled into a smoldering resentment in Germany that would, two decades later, be counted among the causes of World War II .

World War I Casualties

World War I took the lives of more than 9 million soldiers; 21 million more were wounded. Civilian casualties numbered close to 10 million. The two nations most affected were Germany and France, each of which sent some 80 percent of their male populations between the ages of 15 and 49 into battle.

The political disruption surrounding World War I also contributed to the fall of four venerable imperial dynasties: Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and Turkey.

Legacy of World War I

World War I brought about massive social upheaval, as millions of women entered the workforce to replace men who went to war and those who never came back. The first global war also helped to spread one of the world’s deadliest global pandemics, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, which killed an estimated 20 to 50 million people.

World War I has also been referred to as “the first modern war.” Many of the technologies now associated with military conflict—machine guns, tanks , aerial combat and radio communications—were introduced on a massive scale during World War I.

The severe effects that chemical weapons such as mustard gas and phosgene had on soldiers and civilians during World War I galvanized public and military attitudes against their continued use. The Geneva Convention agreements, signed in 1925, restricted the use of chemical and biological agents in warfare and remain in effect today.

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World War 1 - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

World War 1, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict that occurred between 1914 and 1918, chiefly among European powers. Essays on World War 1 might explore the causes of the war, the significant battles, the political dynamics, and the aftermath of the conflict. Discussions could also delve into the technological innovations and tactics employed, the impact of the war on civilian populations, and the cultural and literary responses to the war. Moreover, examining the war’s legacy on international relations, the changing geopolitics, and its role as a precursor to World War 2 can provide a comprehensive exploration of this monumental event in global history. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to World War 1 you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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How To Write an Essay About World War 1

Introduction to world war 1.

When embarking on an essay about World War 1, it's essential to first establish a clear understanding of the historical context and significance of the war. Known as "The Great War," World War 1 was a pivotal event in world history, marked by its unprecedented scale, the involvement of numerous nations, and the introduction of new warfare technologies. In your introduction, outline the basic timeline of the war, from its origins in 1914 to its conclusion in 1918, and the main countries involved. This initial section should set the stage for a comprehensive exploration of the war's causes, major battles, political dynamics, and its profound impact on the 20th century.

Analyzing the Causes and Key Events

The main body of your essay should delve into the complex causes and key events of World War 1. Explore the intricate web of alliances, militarism, imperialism, and nationalism that set the stage for the war. Discuss critical battles and campaigns, such as the Battle of the Somme, the Battle of Verdun, and the Gallipoli Campaign, highlighting their strategic importance and the human cost involved. It's crucial to use specific examples and historical data to illustrate the progression of the war and the shifts in momentum among the warring nations. This section should provide a detailed and nuanced understanding of how World War 1 unfolded and the factors that drove its progression.

The Impact of World War 1

In this section, focus on the wide-ranging impact of World War 1. Analyze the immediate consequences, including the massive loss of life, the physical and psychological toll on soldiers, and the political upheaval in many participating countries. Discuss the broader implications of the war, such as the redrawing of national borders, the dissolution of empires, and the setting of the stage for World War 2. Consider also the social and cultural impacts, including how the war influenced art, literature, and public attitudes towards war and peace. This part of the essay should highlight the transformative effect World War 1 had on the world.

Concluding Reflections on World War 1

Conclude your essay by summarizing the key points of your analysis, emphasizing the historical significance of World War 1. Reflect on the lessons learned from the war and its relevance to modern society. Consider how understanding the complexities of World War 1 can provide insights into current global conflicts and international relations. A well-crafted conclusion will not only bring closure to your essay but also underscore the enduring legacy of World War 1 in shaping the contemporary world.

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World War I Introduction and Overview

Belligerent nations.

• Origins of World War I

World War I on Land

World war i at sea, technical innovation, modern view.

• M.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University
• B.A., Medieval Studies, Sheffield University

World War I was a major conflict fought in Europe and around the world between July 28, 1914, and November 11, 1918. Nations from across all non-polar continents were involved , although Russia, Britain, France, Germany, and Austria-Hungary dominated. Much of the war was characterized by stagnant trench warfare and massive loss of life in failed attacks; over eight million people were killed in battle.

The war was fought by two main power blocks: the Entente Powers , or 'Allies,' comprised of Russia, France, Britain (and later the U.S.), and their allies on one side and the Central Powers of Germany, Austro-Hungary, Turkey, and their allies on the other. Italy later joined the Entente. Many other countries played smaller parts on both sides.

Origins of World War I

To understand the origins , it is important to understand how politics at the time. European politics in the early twentieth century were a dichotomy: many politicians thought war had been banished by progress while others, influenced partly by a fierce arms race, felt war was inevitable. In Germany, this belief went further: the war should happen sooner rather than later, while they still (as they believed) had an advantage over their perceived major enemy, Russia. As Russia and France were allied, Germany feared an attack from both sides. To mitigate this threat, the Germans developed the Schlieffen Plan , a swift looping attack on France designed to knock it out early, allowing for concentration on Russia.

Rising tensions culminated on June 28th, 1914 with the assassination of  Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand  by a Serbian activist, an ally of Russia. Austro-Hungary asked for German support and was promised a 'blank cheque'; they declared war on Serbia on July 28th. What followed was a sort of domino effect as more and more nations joined the fight . Russia mobilized to support Serbia, so Germany declared war on Russia; France then declared war on Germany. As German troops swung through Belgium into France days later, Britain declared war on Germany too. Declarations continued until much of Europe was at war with each other. There was widespread public support.

After the swift German invasion of France was stopped at the Marne, 'the race to the sea' followed as each side tried to outflank each other ever closer to the English Channel. This left the entire Western Front divided by over 400 miles of trenches, around which the war stagnated. Despite massive battles like Ypres , little progress was made and a battle of attrition emerged, caused partly by German intentions to 'bleed the French dry' at Verdun and Britain's attempts on the Somme . There was more movement on the Eastern Front with some major victories, but there was nothing decisive and the war carried on with high casualties.

Attempts to find another route into their enemy’s territory led to the failed Allied invasion of Gallipoli, where Allied forces held a beachhead but were halted by fierce Turkish resistance. There was also conflict on the Italian front, the Balkans, the Middle East, and smaller struggles in colonial holdings where the warring powers bordered each other.

Although the build-up to war had included a naval arms race between Britain and Germany, the only large naval engagement of the conflict was the Battle of Jutland, where both sides claimed victory. Instead, the defining struggle involved submarines and the German decision to pursue Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW). This policy allowed submarines to attack any target they found, including those belonging to the 'neutral' United States, which caused the latter to enter the war in 1917 on behalf of the Allies, supplying much-needed manpower.

Despite Austria-Hungary becoming little more than a German satellite, the Eastern Front was the first to be resolved, the war causing massive political and military instability in Russia, leading to the Revolutions of 1917 , the emergence of socialist government and surrender on December 15. Efforts by the Germans to redirect manpower and take the offensive in the west failed and, on November 11, 1918 (at 11:00 am), faced with allied successes, massive disruption at home and the impending arrival of vast US manpower, Germany signed an Armistice, the last Central power to do so.

Each of the defeated nations signed a treaty with the Allies, most significantly the Treaty of Versailles which was signed with Germany, and which has been blamed for causing further disruption ever since. There was devastation across Europe: 59 million troops had been mobilized, over 8 million died and over 29 million were injured. Huge quantities of capital had been passed to the now emergent United States and the culture of every European nation was deeply affected and the struggle became known as The Great War or The War to End All Wars.

World War I was the first to make major use of machine guns, which soon showed their defensive qualities. It was also the first to see poison gas used on the battlefields, a weapon which both sides made use of, and the first to see tanks, which were initially developed by the allies and later used to great success. The use of aircraft evolved from simply reconnaissance to a whole new form of aerial warfare.

Thanks partly to a generation of war poets who recorded the horrors of the war and a generation of historians who castigated the Allied high command for their decisions and ‘waste of life’ (Allied soldiers being the 'Lions led by Donkeys'), the war was generally viewed as a pointless tragedy. However, later generations of historians have found mileage in revising this view. While the Donkeys have always been ripe for recalibration, and careers built on provocation have always found material (such as Niall Ferguson's The Pity of War ), the centenary commemorations found historiography split between a phalanx wishing to create a new martial pride and sideline the worst of the war to create an image of a conflict well worth fighting and then truly won by the allies, and those who wished to stress the alarming and pointless imperial game millions of people died for. The war remains highly controversial and as subject to attack and defense as the newspapers of the day.

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World War One Essay

Germany was responsible for World War One. To what extent do you agree with this statement? 

Essay by Laura Iafur, 3rd Form

Taking place on 28th July 1914 until 11th November 1918, World War One was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, ending the lives of millions of people. Although no one country deserves more blame than the other countries, many would argue that the country of Serbia, after all, it was a group of Serbian terrorists who killed the hero of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, Franz Ferdinand. This is considered by many, what triggered this war. Others suggest Austria-Hungarian is to blame the most, they wanted war with Serbia even before Franz Ferdinand’s assassination, it seems like the assassination was the opportunity they were waiting for. Some could even say that it was Russia, who was the first to mobilize its troops, creating even more tension in an already unstable Europe. These countries are all guilty for such a violent war, but Germany, being the one that has the blank cheque to Austria-Hungary, is the most responsible of all; without backing up Austria-Hungary, it is improbable that Austria-Hungary would have acted so recklessly.

On 5th July 1914, Germany gave the “blank cheque” of unconditional support to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, fully aware of the consequences it was probably going to bring. At that moment, Germany had the strongest army, with 2,200,000 soldiers and warships, this guaranteed Austria-Hungary that no matter how drastically they acted, they would receive massive support from Germany. If Germany had not given this back up to Austria-Hungary, they most likely would have done something other than declaring war. Germany knew that Russia would most likely help Serbia, which meant that a local war would escalate into a Global war, but they did it anyway.

Germany also dragged Britain into the war when using the Schlieffen plan. On 2nd August, Germany asked for permission for their army to pass through Belgium, to get to France, but they were refused. Sir Edward Grey proposed to Germany that Britain would stay if Germany did not attack France, but the German generals denied this. On 3rd August, Germany violated international treaties by invading Belgium, a neutral country; knowing that Britain was obligated to help Belgium if an invasion occurred. Therefore, Britain declared war on Germany on 4th August 1914.

The enormous increase in tension between these countries was one of the main reasons for this war to start, there are various factors that led to more tension, many in which Germany was involved. One of these factors was the German and British naval race which did not make Britain happy. (“Britannia rules the waves”), and at the end of 1914, Britain was this race.

The Moroccan crisis, 1906, was another factor. The French wanted to conquer Morocco and Britain agreed to help, but in 1905 Kaiser Wilhelm visited Morocco and promised to protect it against anyone who threatened it. The French and British were furious. Germany had to promise to stay out of Morocco, which didn’t make them happy at all. In 1911, there was a revolution in Morocco, the French sent in an army to control it. Kaiser Wilhelm sent a gunboat to the Moroccan part of Agadir; this angered the French and British. Germany was forced to back down, which made them very angry, it increased their resentment. Kaiser Wilhelm was determined to win the next crisis.  All this evidence shows that Germany, at that point was ashamed. They had lost various crisis issues and since they could not allow themselves another defeat. Germany had decided they needed to prove their power, this being the reason they acted in such a careless manner.

Austria-Hungary also deserves part of the blame; they were the ones who declared war first on Serbia on 28th July, 1914. Before 1914, assassinations of royal figures did not usually result in war. However, Austria-Hungary saw the Sarajevo assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife as an opportunity to conquer and destroy Serbia. The Austrian Chief of Staff General Hotzendoz wanted to attack Serbia long before the assassination.

Austria-Hungary sent an ultimatum to Serbia (23rd  July) with ten very exigent requests that needed to be accepted to avoid military conflict. Serbia accepted all requests apart from one, which was to allow Austria-Hungary to enter Serbia and oversee investigation and prosecution on the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. Nonetheless, this was not enough for Austria-Hungary, so they declared war, and with Germany’s support, it would’ve provided an easy win.

On the other hand, if Austria-Hungary did not make a move against Serbia, the different nationalities living in the Austria-Hungarian territory could act against their leaders giving the impression to other countries that there won’t have been any consequences. Austria-Hungary could have acted in a different manner on the Serbia war, but it was due to Germany who empowered them to act this way.

The assassination of Franz Ferdinand was conducted by a Serbian terrorist named Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia, 28th June 1914. This was the spark that caused the war. Gavrilo was a nationalist who wanted Bosnia to be its own country, and when Ferdinand announced his trip to SaraJevo, it was the perfect opportunity to strike against Austria-Hungary. Gavrilo was a member of a terrorist group named, Black Hand. Austria-Hungary suspected the involvement of Serbia in the Bosnian attack, thus representing the final act in a long-standing rivalry between Austria-Hungary and Serbia. Russia did not want a war, the Russian Grand Council decided if Serbia was to be invaded, it would have to request a conference to asses the issue. However, Russia had previous issues with Serbia regarding the Bosnian crisis in 1908.

To conclude, World War One was a chain reaction triggered by the assassination Franz Ferdinand; however, Serbia wasn’t mostly responsible but Germany, who pushed Austria-Hungary in making those decisions leading to the global conflict. The alliance system was created to prevent war, but it did the total opposite, where all the countries were forced to join the war.

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World War 1 Origins (How and Why the War Started) Essay

Introduction, causes of world war 1.

Bibliography

Since time immemorial the world has witnessed wars between different groups, states, countries, and allies. Initially, the motive behind wars was survival. Ancient people fought in order to usurp land for cultivation. Gradually, as the world population grew, the motives behind wars became multifarious.

Different groups and countries started fighting with each other in order to gain control of areas where there were natural resources such as gold. Another reason for war was to gain access to routes generally used for movement of commodities from the starting place to the consumption areas.

It is understood that after a war, one group prospered at the cost of another. Religion also has been an instigating factor for many wars. However, in all the wars, the motive was to gain advantage of some sort.

During the past years, when countries came together as allies, there have been instances when allies of a particular group had to go to war just because they wanted to safeguard themselves from the disadvantages of not participating in the war. In this paper, we shall discuss the reasons that led to World War 1. “World War 1 began in eastern Europe. The war started when Serbia, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany decided that war or the risk of war was an acceptable policy option [1] ”.

General Causes

1879 onwards, the world witnessed formation of alliances between nations having similar interests. Following are some of the major alliances that took place:

• The Dual Alliance: Germany and Austria-Hungary entered into an alliance in 1879 in order to defend against Russia.
• Austro-Serbian Alliance: Austria-Hungary and Serbia entered into an alliance in 1881 in order to prevent Russia from asserting power in Serbia.
• The Triple Alliance: Germany and Austria-Hungary entered into an alliance with Italy in 1882 so that the latter could not favor Russia’s moves.
• Franco-Russian Alliance: Russia and France entered into an alliance in 1894 in order to protect their countries from the Dual Alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
• Entente Cordiale: France and Britain entered into a formal agreement in 1904 in order to protect each other’s interests.
• Anglo-Russian Entente: Britain and Russia entered into a formal agreement in 1907 in order to protect each other’s interests.
• Triple Entente: Russia, France and Britain entered into an alliance to counteract Germany’s growing threats. Later, in 1914 and under the same alliance, all the three countries concurred that they will not sign any peace treaty without mutual consent.

All these alliances (from 1879 to 1914) forced some countries to go to war just because they were in some alliance.

Imperialism

Imperialism is a term used for instances where any country usurps any other country’s land and asserts its supremacy and power. Due to the incessant progress of industrialization, countries felt the need of venturing into fresh marketplaces.

By the year 1900, Britain had extended its empire in five continents and France controlled major parts of Africa. The increase of both these countries’ power did not go well with Germany; Germany had only small areas under its rule. Following is a map that depicts the colonies of these three major European players in 1914.

Source: Web.

William Anthony Hay claims that according to McMeekin, a tutor of international relations, “The war’s real catalyst lay in Russia’s ambition to supplant the waning Ottoman Empire in the Near East and to control the Turkish straits – the Bosphorus and Dardanelles – linking the Black Sea and the Mediterranean [2] ”.

But Richard Evans contradicts this opinion by stating that “In the end it was the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia that set off the process that ended in the outbreak of World War 1, not Russian ambitions in the Straits [3] . But if we think logically, no country will enter into a war without personal interests.

Alliances were also made to serve individual interests. So it is wrong to say that Russia did not have any interest or ambitions in the Straits. Russia was an industrialized nation and needed to sell its products to people in other nations. For this purpose, it needed a safe passage and new markets.

When any country gives preference to its army, it is said to be following militarism. The growing alliances among various nations prompted nations to empower their army with more arms and ammunitions. France and Germany doubled the strengths of their respective armies.

Britain and Germany seemed to be in a competition of better sea control. In 1906, Britain launched the ‘Dreadnought’, considered to be a very efficient battleship. Following the footsteps, Germany also launched its own version of impressive battleships. The following illustration shows how Germany planned to attack France in case Russia attacked Germany; France and Russia were allies. So due to the alliance, Russia was bound to retaliate when one of its allies was attacked.

“A military revolution occurred in the seventeenth century. The most important of the many changes was a considerable growth in the size of the armies. Those large forces could no longer live off the land: steal supplies from the populace [4] ”.

Nationalism

We all have love for our respective countries. So did the people of that period. Austria-Hungary and Serbia had different radical groups trying to free their states from foreign involvement. Both Italy and Germany were divided. People of these countries wanted unification. “Along with the history of imperial machinations, however, World War 1 should be understood in the context of the popular imagination and the growth of nationalist sentiment in Europe [5] ”.

Moroccan Crisis

As part of an understanding, Britain gave control of Morocco to France in 1904. The Moroccan people wanted freedom. Germany, in order to take an advantage of the situation, proclaimed its support for the freedom of Morocco. A conference was held that allowed France to continue its control over Morocco and a war was averted. Again, in 1911, Germany started pronouncing its support for the Moroccan independence but again it was persuaded to compromise its stand on the issue.

Bosnian Crisis

Bosnia (a Turkish province) was taken over by Austria-Hungary in 1908. This action of Austria-Hungary did not go well with the Serbians. The Serbians thought Bosnia was under them. As such, a conflict aroused. Serbia proclaimed war over Austria-Hungary. Russia supported Serbia and Germany supported Austria-Hungary. A war was about to start but at the nick of the time Russia backed off and the war was averted.

But tensions were still mounting up between Serbia and Austria-Hungary. “It is true that during July the German decision makers sometimes expressed the hope that the conflict would be localized: in other words that Austria would be able to vanquish Serbia without Russian Intervention [6] ”. Dale Copeland argues that “Germany actively sought war in July 1914 and that German leaders by the end of July preferred world war to a negotiated peace, even to one that gave Austria most of what it wanted [7] ”.

The Immediate Trigger

World War 1 started in the year 1914. The assassination of Austria’s Archduke, Franz Ferdinand, acted as a trigger to World War 1. Franz Ferdinand and his wife were murdered in 1914 by Gavrilo Princip, member of a Bosnian radical group. “The crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire decided, after the assassination on 28 June, to take action against Serbia, which was suspected of being behind the murder [8] ”.

This was considered to be an immediate reason for the war but the real reasons seem to be more complex and are still topics of debate among various historians. According to William Anthony Hay, “Germany bears responsibility for the war, in this view, because its leaders deliberately turned a regional clash between Austria-Hungary and Serbia into an existential Struggle of rival alliances [9] ”.

Hay is right in his opinion because history reveals that there were other options with Germany that could have averted the war. But since Germany wanted to gain on its own interests, it forced other countries to plunge into a war that they did not intend. “The size and wealth of the conquered Eastern territories easily outweighed what would have been lost had the Germans withdrawn from Belgium and France. Had they done so, France might have made peace and the anti-German coalition collapsed [10] ”.

All these instances make us to believe that Germany was behind waging the World War 1. In its ambitions to usurp power, Germany was thought to have instigated the war. But it is to be understood that down the years, historians put an end to the controversy as to which country was responsible for the World War 1.

Historians from the two main countries (Germany and France) came to an understanding that none of their countries should be blamed for instigating World War 1. It was the policies of militarization of each of the participating countries that led to the war.

But certain facts still point the finger towards Germany. After the war started, some confidential documents were discovered that suggested that the German government had vast plans of extending its territory due to the economic requirements.

Copeland, Dale. The Origins of Major War. New York: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Evans, Richard. “ The Road to Slaughter. ” New Republic . 2011. Web.

Fergusan, Niall. “Germany and the origins of the First World War: New Perspectives.” The Historical Journal 35, no. 3 (1992): 725-752.

Hamilton, Richard and Holger Herwig. The Origins of World War 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Hay, William. “ Ambition in the East .” The Wall Street Journal . 2011. Web.

Merriman, John. “The Origins of World War 1.” Yale University . 2013. Web.

Sheffield, Gary. “ The Origins of World War One. ” BBC. 2011. Web.

Williamson, Samuel. “The Origins of World War 1.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4 (1988): 795-818.

• Samuel Williamson, “The Origins of World War 1,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 18, no. 4 (1988): 795.
• William Anthony Hay, “Ambition in the East,” The Wall Street Journal , 2011.
• Richard Evans, “The Road to Slaughter,” 2011.
• Richard Hamilton and Holger Herwig, The Origins of World War 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 5.
• John Merriman, “The Origins of World War 1,” Yale University , 2013.
• Niall Fergusan, “Germany and the origins of the First World War: New Perspectives”, Historical Journal 35, no. 3 (1992): 731.
• Dale Copeland, The Origins of Major War (New York: Cornell University Press , 2001), 79.
• Gary Sheffield, “The Origins of World War One,” BBC , 2011.
• William Anthony Hay, “Ambition in the East” in The Wall Street Journal
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• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, December 11). World War 1 Origins (How and Why the War Started). https://ivypanda.com/essays/world-war-1-origins-how-and-why-the-war-started/

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Essay on World War 1

Students are often asked to write an essay on World War 1 in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on World War 1

Introduction.

World War 1, also known as the Great War, was a global conflict that started in 1914 and ended in 1918. It involved many world powers and caused significant changes globally.

Causes of the War

The war began due to various reasons including nationalism, imperialism, militarism, and a complex system of alliances. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary triggered the war.

Major Battles

Key battles included the Battle of the Somme and the Battle of Verdun. These battles caused heavy casualties and marked turning points in the war.

End of the War

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. This treaty held Germany responsible for the war and imposed heavy penalties.

Impact of the War

World War 1 had significant impacts. It led to the fall of empires, redrew the world map, and set the stage for World War 2.

Also check:

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250 Words Essay on World War 1

Origins of world war 1.

World War 1, also known as the Great War, began in 1914, triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. An intricate web of alliances across Europe, coupled with nationalistic fervor, propelled the continent into war.

The Central and Allied Powers

The war was fought between the Central Powers, led by Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, and the Allied Powers, comprising France, Russia, and the United Kingdom. The United States initially maintained neutrality but joined the Allies in 1917.

The Nature of Warfare

World War 1 marked a shift from conventional to trench warfare, characterized by its static nature and high casualty rates. The war also saw the introduction of new technology, including tanks, aircraft, and chemical weapons, which further escalated its devastating impact.

Impact and Aftermath

The war resulted in significant geopolitical changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919, ended the war but sowed the seeds for future conflicts, including World War 2. The war also marked the beginning of significant shifts in global power.

Legacy of World War 1

World War 1 had profound effects on the course of the 20th century. It led to the fall of empires, redrew the world map, and set the stage for the rise of the United States and the Soviet Union as global superpowers. Its legacy continues to shape contemporary global politics.

500 Words Essay on World War 1

World War I, often referred to as the Great War, was a global conflict that commenced on July 28, 1914, and lasted until November 11, 1918. This war, unprecedented in the annals of history, brought significant changes to the political, social, and economic spheres of the world.

The inception of World War I can be attributed to a complex interplay of factors. Nationalism, militarism, and imperialism were the undercurrents that fueled the war. However, the immediate catalyst was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, by a Serbian nationalist in June 1914. This event led to a diplomatic crisis, and the entangled web of alliances among European powers escalated the situation into a full-scale war.

The War Fronts and Strategies

World War I was characterized by trench warfare, where soldiers fought from deep trenches, making the conflict a war of attrition. The Western and Eastern Fronts were the primary battlefields. The Western Front, a series of trenches stretching from the English Channel to the Swiss border, witnessed brutal warfare. The Eastern Front, though larger and less fortified, was equally deadly.

Major Events

Key events of World War I include the Battle of the Marne, where the German advance was halted, marking the end of mobile warfare on the Western Front. The Gallipoli Campaign was another significant event, where the Allies’ failed attempt to control the sea route from Europe to Russia resulted in heavy casualties. The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania by a German submarine, which resulted in American deaths, was instrumental in bringing the United States into the war in 1917.

Technological Advancements

World War I was a crucible for technological innovation. The war saw the first use of chemical weapons, tanks, and aircraft in combat. Submarines became a significant naval weapon, and machine guns became a ubiquitous feature on the battlefield. These advancements changed the face of warfare, making it more lethal and mechanized.

Conclusion: The Aftermath

The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, which held Germany responsible for the war and imposed hefty reparations. The aftermath of World War I saw the dissolution of empires, redrawing of boundaries, and the emergence of new nations. The League of Nations was established to maintain world peace, but it failed to prevent another devastating conflict – World War II. The social and economic upheavals caused by the war also set the stage for significant political changes, including the Russian Revolution and the rise of Fascism.

World War I was a watershed event in human history, leaving an indelible mark on the world’s political, social, and economic landscape. Its repercussions are still felt today, making it a pivotal study in understanding the dynamics of global conflicts.

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Home — Essay Samples — Sociology — Connection — Unveiling the Causes and Consequences of World War I

Unveiling The Causes and Consequences of World War I

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Forget Aircraft Carriers: Submarines are How the U.S. Navy Beats China in a War

Summary: Mike Sweeney's essay, published by the U.S. Naval Institute, argues that submarines, not aircraft carriers, will dominate future naval warfare, especially in a potential conflict with China.

-Historian John Keegan's insights support this view, emphasizing submarines' stealth and versatility compared to carriers' vulnerability. Despite its ambitious shipbuilding, China lags in developing quiet, capable nuclear submarines, making it a regional rather than a global naval power.

-Sweeney contends that without advanced undersea warfare capabilities, China cannot match U.S. naval superiority globally. The essay highlights the strategic importance of submarines in maintaining U.S. naval dominance amid evolving threats.

Why Submarines Could Eclipse Aircraft Carriers in U.S.-China Naval Conflict

Last year, the U.S. Naval Institute published an essay by Mike Sweeney claiming that “ Submarines Will Reign in a War with China .” The essay, as you might expect, suggested that the submarine—rather than the  aircraft carrier —will be the most important naval vessel of the future.

Were submarines to reign supreme in the future of naval warfare, the United States would benefit, as  China  has failed to develop a submarine fleet capable of competing with the Americans.

The era of the submarine?

Sweeney’s essay echoed the sentiments of noted historian  John Keegan , who argued in the 1980s that of the two most important naval platforms to emerge during World War II (the aircraft carrier and the submarine) it was the submarine that would prove more vital to future warfare.

“The aircraft carrier, whatever realistic scenario or action is drawn...will be exposed to a wider range of threats than the submarine must face,” Keegan wrote. “In a shoreward context, it risks attack not only by carrier-borne but also by land-based aircraft, land-based missiles, and the submarine itself.”

Keegan’s insights drew heavily upon the only significant naval engagement fought since the conclusion of World War II, the  Falkland Islands War . During the  conflict , the British navy was confronted with a new threat (anti-ship cruise missiles, or ASCMs) and an old threat, the submarine.

The Argentinians, defending the Falkland Islands, deployed the  San Luis  diesel-powered submarine. Despite being poorly maintained, despite being staffed with a poorly trained crew, the  San Luis  proved troublesome for the relatively advanced British navy. The British navy deployed a submarine, too, the nuclear-powered HMS  Conqueror , which sank Argentina’s  General Belgrano  cruiser, scaring the Argentine Navy to port for the rest of the conflict.

Keegan believed that the threat submarines (and ASCMs) posed would prove insurmountable and un-survivable, causing the oceans to become “empty,” with future combatants engaging only beneath the surface of the waves.

Now, Keegan’s prediction hangs over the heads of U.S. war planners prepping for conflict with China.

“Increased threats to aircraft carriers and other surface combatants from “land-based aircraft, land-based missiles, and the submarine itself” is a fair description of the anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) capabilities China has developed,” Sweeney wrote. “More broadly, the future of undersea warfare is likely to be a major determinant of the long-term military balance between China and the United States.”

Preparing for China

China is currently amid one of world history’s most ambitious  shipbuilding sprees , a modernization “remarkable in its scope and success,” according to Sweeney. Yet, despite the scope and success, China’s navy has failed to produce high-quality nuclear submarines. Whereas the United States (and Soviets) were able to achieve sophisticated quieting technology decades ago, the Chinese SSN, the  Shang -class, “is estimated to be on par with Soviet designs from the 1970s, before the quieting breakthroughs that produced the  Akula .” And “China’s SSBNs, the Jin-class , have noise levels comparable to Soviet SSBNs that first put to sea more than four decades ago,” Sweeney wrote.

Accordingly, without capable nuclear-powered submarines, Sweeney argues, the Chinese navy will “remain a regional navy.” True, China has built the capabilities to challenge U.S. supremacy in the narrowly defined “western Pacific,” but that “does not equate to a global challenge to U.S. naval superiority.” In order to compete with the United States on a global  level , “China would have to expand its expeditionary operations and a central part of that would need to be vastly improved undersea warfare capabilities.”

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

The New Propaganda War

Autocrats in China, Russia, and elsewhere are now making common cause with MAGA Republicans to discredit liberalism and freedom around the world.

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On June 4 , 1989 , the Polish Communist Party held partially free elections, setting in motion a series of events that ultimately removed the Communists from power. Not long afterward, street protests calling for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy brought about the end of the Communist regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Within a few years, the Soviet Union itself would no longer exist.

Also on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the military to remove thousands of students from Tiananmen Square. The students were calling for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy. Soldiers arrested and killed demonstrators in Beijing and around the country. Later, they systematically tracked down the leaders of the protest movement and forced them to confess and recant. Some spent years in jail. Others managed to elude their pursuers and flee the country forever.

Explore the June 2024 Issue

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In the aftermath of these events, the Chinese concluded that the physical elimination of dissenters was insufficient. To prevent the democratic wave then sweeping across Central Europe from reaching East Asia, the Chinese Communist Party eventually set out to eliminate not just the people but the ideas that had motivated the protests. In the years to come, this would require policing what the Chinese people could see online.

Nobody believed that this would work. In 2000, President Bill Clinton told an audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that it was impossible. “In the knowledge economy,” he said, “economic innovation and political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in hand.” The transcript records the audience reactions:

“Now, there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the internet.” ( Chuckles. ) “Good luck!” ( Laughter. ) “That’s sort of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” ( Laughter. )

While we were still rhapsodizing about the many ways in which the internet could spread democracy, the Chinese were designing what’s become known as the Great Firewall of China . That method of internet management—which is in effect conversation management—contains many different elements, beginning with an elaborate system of blocks and filters that prevent internet users from seeing particular words and phrases. Among them, famously, are Tiananmen , 1989 , and June 4 , but there are many more. In 2000, a directive called “ Measures for Managing Internet Information Services ” prohibited an extraordinarily wide range of content, including anything that “endangers national security, divulges state secrets, subverts the government, undermines national unification,” and “is detrimental to the honor and interests of the state”—anything, in other words, that the authorities didn’t like.

From the May 2022 issue: There is no liberal world order

The Chinese regime also combined online tracking methods with other tools of repression, including security cameras, police inspections, and arrests. In Xinjiang province, where China’s Uyghur Muslim population is concentrated, the state has forced people to install “nanny apps” that can scan phones for forbidden phrases and pick up unusual behavior: Anyone who downloads a virtual private network, anyone who stays offline altogether, and anyone whose home uses too much electricity (which could be evidence of a secret houseguest) can arouse suspicion. Voice-recognition technology and even DNA swabs are used to monitor where Uyghurs walk, drive, and shop. With every new breakthrough, with every AI advance, China has gotten closer to its holy grail: a system that can eliminate not just the words democracy and Tiananmen from the internet, but the thinking that leads people to become democracy activists or attend public protests in real life.

But along the way, the Chinese regime discovered a deeper problem: Surveillance, regardless of sophistication, provides no guarantees. During the coronavirus pandemic, the Chinese government imposed controls more severe than most of its citizens had ever experienced. Millions of people were locked into their homes. Untold numbers entered government quarantine camps. Yet the lockdown also produced the angriest and most energetic Chinese protests in many years. Young people who had never attended a demonstration and had no memory of Tiananmen gathered in the streets of Beijing and Shanghai in the autumn of 2022 to talk about freedom. In Xinjiang, where lockdowns were the longest and harshest, and where repression is most complete, people came out in public and sang the Chinese national anthem , emphasizing one line: “Rise up, those who refuse to be slaves!” Clips of their performance circulated widely, presumably because the spyware and filters didn’t identify the national anthem as dissent.

Even in a state where surveillance is almost total, the experience of tyranny and injustice can radicalize people. Anger at arbitrary power will always lead someone to start thinking about another system, a better way to run society. The strength of these demonstrations, and the broader anger they reflected, was enough to spook the Chinese Communist Party into lifting the quarantine and allowing the virus to spread. The deaths that resulted were preferable to public anger and protest.

Like the demonstrations against President Vladimir Putin in Russia that began in 2011, the 2014 street protests in Venezuela , and the 2019 Hong Kong protests , the 2022 protests in China help explain something else: why autocratic regimes have slowly turned their repressive mechanisms outward, into the democratic world. If people are naturally drawn to the image of human rights, to the language of democracy, to the dream of freedom, then those concepts have to be poisoned. That requires more than surveillance, more than close observation of the population, more than a political system that defends against liberal ideas. It also requires an offensive plan: a narrative that damages both the idea of democracy everywhere in the world and the tools to deliver it.

On February 24, 2022, as Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, fantastical tales of biological warfare began surging across the internet. Russian officials solemnly declared that secret U.S.-funded biolabs in Ukraine had been conducting experiments with bat viruses and claimed that U.S. officials had confessed to manipulating “dangerous pathogens.” The story was unfounded, not to say ridiculous, and was repeatedly debunked .

Nevertheless, an American Twitter account with links to the QAnon conspiracy network—@WarClandestine—began tweeting about the nonexistent biolabs , racking up thousands of retweets and views. The hashtag #biolab started trending on Twitter and reached more than 9 million views. Even after the account—later revealed to belong to a veteran of the Army National Guard—was suspended, people continued to post screenshots. A version of the story appeared on the Infowars website created by Alex Jones, best known for promoting conspiracy theories about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School and harassing families of the victims. Tucker Carlson, then still hosting a show on Fox News, played clips of a Russian general and a Chinese spokesperson repeating the biolab fantasy and demanded that the Biden administration “stop lying and [tell] us what’s going on here.”

Chinese state media also leaned hard into the story. A foreign-ministry spokesperson declared that the U.S. controlled 26 biolabs in Ukraine: “Russia has found during its military operations that the U.S. uses these facilities to conduct bio-military plans.” Xinhua, a Chinese state news agency, ran multiple headlines: “U.S.-Led Biolabs Pose Potential Threats to People of Ukraine and Beyond,” “Russia Urges U.S. to Explain Purpose of Biological Labs in Ukraine,” and so on. U.S. diplomats publicly refuted these fabrications. Nevertheless, the Chinese continued to spread them. So did the scores of Asian, African, and Latin American media outlets that have content-sharing agreements with Chinese state media. So did Telesur, the Venezuelan network; Press TV, the Iranian network; and Russia Today, in Spanish and Arabic, as well as on many Russia Today–linked websites around the world.

This joint propaganda effort worked. Globally, it helped undermine the U.S.-led effort to create solidarity with Ukraine and enforce sanctions against Russia. Inside the U.S., it helped undermine the Biden administration’s effort to consolidate American public opinion in support of providing aid to Ukraine. According to one poll, a quarter of Americans believed the biolabs conspiracy theory to be true. After the invasion, Russia and China—with, again, help from Venezuela, Iran, and far-right Europeans and Americans—successfully created an international echo chamber. Anyone inside this echo chamber heard the biolab conspiracy theory many times, from different sources, each one repeating and building on the others to create the impression of veracity. They also heard false descriptions of Ukrainians as Nazis, along with claims that Ukraine is a puppet state run by the CIA, and that NATO started the war.

Outside this echo chamber, few even know it exists. At a dinner in Munich in February 2023, I found myself seated across from a European diplomat who had just returned from Africa. He had met with some students there and had been shocked to discover how little they knew about the war in Ukraine, and how much of what they did know was wrong. They had repeated the Russian claims that the Ukrainians are Nazis, blamed NATO for the invasion, and generally used the same kind of language that can be heard every night on the Russian evening news. The diplomat was mystified. He grasped for explanations: Maybe the legacy of colonialism explained the spread of these conspiracy theories, or Western neglect of the global South, or the long shadow of the Cold War.

But the story of how Africans—as well as Latin Americans, Asians, and indeed many Europeans and Americans—have come to spout Russian propaganda about Ukraine is not primarily a story of European colonial history, Western policy, or the Cold War. Rather, it involves China’s systematic efforts to buy or influence both popular and elite audiences around the world; carefully curated Russian propaganda campaigns, some open, some clandestine, some amplified by the American and European far right; and other autocracies using their own networks to promote the same language.

To be fair to the European diplomat, the convergence of what had been disparate authoritarian influence projects is still new. Russian information-laundering and Chinese propaganda have long had different goals. Chinese propagandists mostly stayed out of the democratic world’s politics, except to promote Chinese achievements, Chinese economic success, and Chinese narratives about Tibet or Hong Kong. Their efforts in Africa and Latin America tended to feature dull, unwatchable announcements of investments and state visits. Russian efforts were more aggressive—sometimes in conjunction with the far right or the far left in the democratic world—and aimed to distort debates and elections in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and elsewhere. Still, they often seemed unfocused, as if computer hackers were throwing spaghetti at the wall, just to see which crazy story might stick. Venezuela and Iran were fringe players, not real sources of influence.

Slowly, though, these autocracies have come together, not around particular stories, but around a set of ideas, or rather in opposition to a set of ideas. Transparency, for example. And rule of law. And democracy. They have heard language about those ideas—which originate in the democratic world—coming from their own dissidents, and have concluded that they are dangerous to their regimes. Their own rhetoric makes this clear. In 2013, as Chinese President Xi Jinping was beginning his rise to power, an internal Chinese memo, known enigmatically as Document No. 9 —or, more formally, as the Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere—listed “seven perils” faced by the Chinese Communist Party. “Western constitutional democracy” led the list, followed by “universal human rights,” “media independence,” “judicial independence,” and “civic participation.” The document concluded that “Western forces hostile to China,” together with dissidents inside the country, “are still constantly infiltrating the ideological sphere,” and instructed party leaders to push back against these ideas wherever they found them, especially online, inside China and around the world.

From the December 2021 issue: The bad guys are winning

Since at least 2004, the Russians have been focused on the same convergence of internal and external ideological threats. That was the year Ukrainians staged a popular revolt, known as the Orange Revolution —the name came from the orange T-shirts and flags of the protesters—against a clumsy attempt to steal a presidential election. The angry intervention of the Ukrainian public into what was meant to have been a carefully orchestrated victory for Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Russian candidate directly supported by Putin himself, profoundly unnerved the Russians. This was especially the case because a similarly unruly protest movement in Georgia had brought a pro-European politician, Mikheil Saakashvili, to power the year before.

Shaken by those two events, Putin put the bogeyman of “color revolution” at the center of Russian propaganda. Civic protest movements are now always described as color revolutions in Russia, and as the work of outsiders. Popular opposition leaders are always said to be puppets of foreign governments. Anti-corruption and prodemocracy slogans are linked to chaos and instability wherever they are used, whether in Tunisia, Syria, or the United States. In 2011, a year of mass protest against a manipulated election in Russia itself, Putin bitterly described the Orange Revolution as a “well-tested scheme for destabilizing society,” and he accused the Russian opposition of “transferring this practice to Russian soil,” where he feared a similar popular uprising intended to remove him from power.

Putin was wrong—no “scheme” had been “transferred.” Public discontent in Russia simply had no way to express itself except through street protest, and Putin’s opponents had no legal means to remove him from power. Like so many other people around the world, they talked about democracy and human rights because they recognized that these concepts represented their best hope for achieving justice, and freedom from autocratic power. The protests that led to democratic transitions in the Philippines, Taiwan, South Africa, South Korea, and Mexico; the “people’s revolutions” that washed across Central and Eastern Europe in 1989; the Arab Spring in 2011; and, yes, the color revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia—all were begun by those who had suffered injustice at the hands of the state, and who seized on the language of freedom and democracy to propose an alternative.

This is the core problem for autocracies: The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and others all know that the language of transparency, accountability, justice, and democracy appeals to some of their citizens, as it does to many people who live in dictatorships. Even the most sophisticated surveillance can’t wholly suppress it. The very ideas of democracy and freedom must be discredited—especially in the places where they have historically flourished.

In the 20th century, Communist Party propaganda was overwhelming and inspiring, or at least it was meant to be. The future it portrayed was shiny and idealized, a vision of clean factories, abundant produce, and healthy tractor drivers with large muscles and square jaws. The architecture was designed to overpower, the music to intimidate, the public spectacles to awe. In theory, citizens were meant to feel enthusiasm, inspiration, and hope. In practice, this kind of propaganda backfired, because people could compare what they saw on posters and in movies with a far more impoverished reality.

A few autocracies still portray themselves to their citizens as model states. The North Koreans continue to hold colossal military parades with elaborate gymnastics displays and huge portraits of their leader, very much in the Stalinist style. But most modern authoritarians have learned from the mistakes of the previous century. Freedom House, a nonprofit that advocates for democracy around the world, lists 56 countries as “not free.” Most don’t offer their fellow citizens a vision of utopia, and don’t inspire them to build a better world. Instead, they teach people to be cynical and passive, apathetic and afraid, because there is no better world to build. Their goal is to persuade their own people to stay out of politics, and above all to convince them that there is no democratic alternative: Our state may be corrupt, but everyone else is corrupt too. You may not like our leader, but the others are worse. You may not like our society, but at least we are strong. The democratic world is weak, degenerate, divided, dying.

Instead of portraying China as the perfect society, modern Chinese propaganda seeks to inculcate nationalist pride, based on China’s real experience of economic development, and to promote a Beijing model of progress through dictatorship and “order” that’s superior to the chaos and violence of democracy . Chinese media mocked the laxity of the American response to the pandemic with an animated film that ended with the Statue of Liberty on an intravenous drip . China’s Global Times wrote that Chinese people were mocking the January 6 insurrection as “karma” and “retribution”: “Seeing such scenarios,” the publication’s then-editor wrote in an op-ed , “many Chinese will naturally recall that Nancy Pelosi once praised the violence of Hong Kong protesters as ‘a beautiful sight to behold.’ ” (Pelosi, of course, had praised peaceful demonstrators , not violence.) The Chinese are told that these forces of chaos are out to disrupt their own lives, and they are encouraged to fight against them in a “people’s war” against foreign influence.

Read: I watched Russian TV so you don’t have to

Russians, although they hear very little about what happens in their own towns and cities, receive similar messages about the decline of places they don’t know and have mostly never visited: America, France, Britain, Sweden, Poland—countries apparently filled with degeneracy, hypocrisy, and Russophobia . A study of Russian television from 2014 to 2017 found that negative news about Europe appeared on the three main Russian channels, all state-controlled, an average of 18 times a day. Some of the stories were obviously invented ( European governments are stealing children from straight families and giving them to gay couples!  ), but even the true ones were cherry-picked to support the idea that daily life in Europe is frightening and chaotic, that Europeans are weak and immoral, and that the European Union is aggressive and interventionist. If anything, the portrayal of America has been more dramatic. Putin himself has displayed a surprisingly intimate acquaintance with American culture wars about transgender rights, and mockingly sympathized with people who he says have been “canceled.”

The goal is clear: to prevent Russians from identifying with Europe the way they once did, and to build alliances between Putin’s domestic audience and his supporters in Europe and North America, where some naive conservatives (or perhaps cynical, well-paid conservatives) seek to convince their followers that Russia is a “white Christian state.” In reality, Russia has very low church attendance, legal abortion, and a multiethnic population containing millions of Muslim citizens and migrants. The autonomous region of Chechnya, which is part of the Russian Federation, is governed, in practice, by elements of Sharia law . The Russian state harasses and represses many forms of religion outside the state-sanctioned Russian Orthodox Church, including evangelical Protestantism. Nevertheless, among the slogans shouted by white nationalists marching in the infamous Charlottesville, Virginia, demonstration in 2017 was “ Russia is our friend .” Putin sends periodic messages to this constituency: “I uphold the traditional approach that a woman is a woman, a man is a man, a mother is a mother, and a father is a father,” he told a press conference in December 2021, almost as if this “traditional approach” would be justification for invading Ukraine.

Michael Carpenter: Russia is co-opting angry young men

This manipulation of the strong emotions around gay rights and feminism has been widely copied throughout the autocratic world, often as a means of defending against criticism of the regime. Yoweri Museveni, who has been the president of Uganda for more than three decades, passed an “anti-homosexuality” bill in 2014, instituting a life sentence for gay people who have sex or marry and criminalizing the “promotion” of a homosexual lifestyle. By picking a fight over gay rights, he was able to consolidate his supporters at home while neutralizing foreign criticisms of his regime, describing them as “social imperialism”: “Outsiders cannot dictate to us; this is our country,” he declared. Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, also ducks discussion of Hungarian corruption by hiding behind a culture war. He pretends that ongoing tension between his government and the U.S. ambassador to Hungary concerns religion and gender: During Tucker Carlson’s recent visit to Hungary , Carlson declared that the Biden administration “hates” Hungary because “it’s a Christian country,” when in fact it is Orbán’s deep financial and political ties to Russia and China that have badly damaged American-Hungarian relations.

The new authoritarians also have a different attitude toward reality. When Soviet leaders lied, they tried to make their falsehoods seem real. They became angry when anyone accused them of lying. But in Putin’s Russia, Bashar al-Assad’s Syria, and Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela, politicians and television personalities play a different game. They lie constantly, blatantly, obviously. But they don’t bother to offer counterarguments when their lies are exposed. After Russian-controlled forces shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 over Ukraine in 2014, the Russian government reacted not only with a denial, but with multiple stories, plausible and implausible: It blamed the Ukrainian army, and the CIA, and a nefarious plot in which dead people were placed on a plane in order to fake a crash and discredit Russia. This tactic—the so-called fire hose of falsehoods—ultimately produces not outrage but nihilism. Given so many explanations, how can you know what actually happened? What if you just can’t know? If you don’t know what happened, you’re not likely to join a great movement for democracy, or to listen when anyone speaks about positive political change. Instead, you are not going to participate in any politics at all.

Anne Applebaum: The American face of authoritarian propaganda

Fear, cynicism, nihilism, and apathy, coupled with disgust and disdain for democracy: This is the formula that modern autocrats, with some variations, sell to their citizens and to foreigners, all with the aim of destroying what they call “American hegemony.” In service of this idea, Russia, a colonial power, paints itself as a leader of the non-Western civilizations in what the analyst Ivan Klyszcz calls their struggle for “ messianic multipolarity ,” a battle against “the West’s imposition of ‘decadent,’ ‘globalist’ values.” In September 2022, when Putin held a ceremony to mark his illegal annexation of southern and eastern Ukraine, he claimed that he was protecting Russia from the “satanic” West and “perversions that lead to degradation and extinction.” He did not speak of the people he had tortured or the Ukrainian children he had kidnapped. A year later, Putin told a gathering in Sochi: “We are now fighting not just for Russia’s freedom but for the freedom of the whole world. We can frankly say that the dictatorship of one hegemon is becoming decrepit. We see it, and everyone sees it now. It is getting out of control and is simply dangerous for others.” The language of “hegemony” and “multipolarity” is now part of Chinese, Iranian, and Venezuelan narratives too.

In truth, Russia is a genuine danger to its neighbors, which is why most of them are re-arming and preparing to fight against a new colonial occupation. The irony is even greater in African countries like Mali, where Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group have helped keep a military dictatorship in power, reportedly by conducting summary executions, committing atrocities against civilians, and looting property. In Mali, as in Ukraine, the battle against Western decadence means that white Russian thugs brutally terrorize people with impunity.

And yet Mali Actu, a pro-Russian website in Mali, solemnly explains to its readers that “in a world that is more and more multipolar, Africa will play a more and more important role.” Mali Actu is not alone; it’s just a small part of a propaganda network, created by the autocracies, that is now visible all over the world.

The infrastructure of antidemocratic propaganda takes many forms, some overt and some covert, some aimed at the public and some aimed at elites. The United Front, the fulcrum of the Chinese Communist Party’s most important influence strategy, seeks to shape perceptions of China around the world by creating educational and exchange programs, controlling Chinese exile communities, building Chinese chambers of commerce, and courting anyone willing to be a de facto spokesperson for China. The Confucius Institutes are probably the best-known elite Chinese influence project. Originally perceived as benign cultural bodies not unlike the Goethe-Institut, run by the German government, and the Alliance Française, they were welcomed by many universities because they provided cheap or even free Chinese-language classes and professors. Over time, the institutes aroused suspicion, policing Chinese students at American universities by restricting open discussions of Tibet and Taiwan, and in some cases altering the teaching of Chinese history and politics to suit Chinese narratives. They have now been mostly disbanded in the United States. But they are flourishing in many other places, including Africa, where there are several dozen.

These subtler operations are augmented by China’s enormous investment in international media. The Xinhua wire service, the China Global Television Network, China Radio International, and China Daily all receive significant state financing , have social-media accounts in multiple languages and regions, and sell, share, or otherwise promote their content. These Chinese outlets cover the entire world, and provide feeds of slickly produced news and video segments to their partners at low prices, sometimes for free, which makes them more than competitive with reputable Western newswires, such as Reuters and the Associated Press. Scores of news organizations in Europe and Asia use Chinese content, as do many in Africa, from Kenya and Nigeria to Egypt and Zambia. Chinese media maintain a regional hub in Nairobi, where they hire prominent local journalists and produce content in African languages. Building this media empire has been estimated to cost billions of dollars a year.

For the moment, viewership of many of these Chinese-owned channels remains low; their output can be predictable, even boring. But more popular forms of Chinese television are gradually becoming available. StarTimes, a satellite-television company that is tightly linked to the Chinese government, launched in Africa in 2008 and now has 13 million television subscribers in more than 30 African countries. StarTimes is cheap for consumers, costing just a few dollars a month. It prioritizes Chinese content—not just news but kung-fu movies, soap operas, and Chinese Super League football, with the dialogue and commentary all translated into Hausa, Swahili, and other African languages. In this way, even entertainment can carry China-positive messages.

This subtler shift is the real goal: to have the Chinese point of view appear in the local press, with local bylines. Chinese propagandists call this strategy “borrowing boats to reach the sea,” and it can be achieved in many ways. Unlike Western governments, China doesn’t think of propaganda, censorship, diplomacy, and media as separate activities. Legal pressure on news organizations, online trolling operations aimed at journalists, cyberattacks—all of these can be deployed as part of a single operation designed to promulgate or undermine a given narrative. China also offers training courses or stipends for local journalists across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, sometimes providing phones and laptops in exchange for what the regime hopes will be favorable coverage.

The Chinese also cooperate, both openly and discreetly, with the media outlets of other autocracies. Telesur, a Hugo Chávez project launched in 2005, is headquartered in Caracas and led by Venezuela in partnership with Cuba and Nicaragua. Selectively culled bits of foreign news make it onto Telesur from its partners, including headlines that presumably have limited appeal in Latin America: “US-Armenia Joint Military Drills Undermine Regional Stability,” for example, and “Russia Has No Expansionist Plans in Europe.” Both of these stories, from 2023, were lifted directly from the Xinhua wire.

Iran, for its part, offers HispanTV, the Spanish-language version of Press TV, the Iranian international service. HispanTV leans heavily into open anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial: One March 2020 headline declared that the “New Coronavirus Is the Result of a Zionist Plot.” Spain banned HispanTV and Google blocked it from its YouTube and Gmail accounts, but the service is easily available across Latin America, just as Al-Alam, the Arabic version of Press TV, is widely available in the Middle East. After the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, an international group dedicated to fighting disinformation, found that Iran was creating additional hacking groups to target digital, physical, and electoral infrastructure in Israel (where it went after electoral rolls) and the United States. In the future, these hacking operations may be combined with propaganda campaigns.

RT—Russia Today—has a bigger profile than either Telesur or Press TV; in Africa, it has close links to China . Following the invasion of Ukraine, some satellite networks dropped RT. But China’s StarTimes satellite picked it up, and RT immediately began building offices and relationships across Africa, especially in countries run by autocrats who echo its anti-Western, anti-LGBTQ messages, and who appreciate its lack of critical or investigative reporting.

RT—like Press TV, Telesur, and even CGTN—also functions as a production facility, a source of video clips that can be spread online, repurposed and reused in targeted campaigns. Americans got a firsthand view of how the clandestine versions work in 2016, when the Internet Research Agency—now disbanded but based then in St. Petersburg and led by the late Yevgeny Prigozhin, more famous as the mercenary boss of the Wagner Group who staged an aborted march on Moscow—pumped out fake material via fake Facebook and Twitter accounts, designed to confuse American voters. Examples ranged from virulently anti-immigration accounts aimed at benefiting Donald Trump to fake Black Lives Matter accounts that attacked Hillary Clinton from the left.

Since 2016, these tactics have been applied across the globe. The Xinhua and RT offices in Africa and around the world—along with Telesur and HispanTV—create stories, slogans, memes, and narratives promoting the worldview of the autocracies; these, in turn, are repeated and amplified in many countries, translated into many languages, and reshaped for many local markets. The material produced is mostly unsophisticated, but it is inexpensive and can change quickly, according to the needs of the moment. After the October 7 Hamas attack, for example, official and unofficial Russian sources immediately began putting out both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic material, and messages calling American and Western support for Ukraine hypocritical in light of the Gaza conflict. The data-analytics company Alto Intelligence found posts smearing both Ukrainians and Israelis as “Nazis,” part of what appears to be a campaign to bring far-left and far-right communities closer together in opposition to U.S.-allied democracies. Anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas messages also increased inside China, as well as on Chinese-linked accounts around the world. Joshua Eisenman, a professor at Notre Dame and the author of a new book on China’s relations with Africa, told me that during a recent trip to Beijing, he was astonished by how quickly the previous Chinese line on the Middle East—“China-Israel relations are stronger than ever”—changed. “It was a complete 180 in just a few days.”

Not that everyone hearing these messages will necessarily know where they come from, because they often appear in forums that conceal their origins. Most people probably did not hear the American-biolabs conspiracy theory on a television news program, for example. Instead, they heard it thanks to organizations like Pressenza and Yala News. Pressenza, a website founded in Milan and relocated to Ecuador in 2014, publishes in eight languages, describes itself as “an international news agency dedicated to news about peace and nonviolence,” and featured an article on biolabs in Ukraine. According to the U.S. State Department, Pressenza is part of a project, run by three Russian companies, that planned to create articles in Moscow and then translate them for these “native” sites, following Chinese practice, to make them seem “local.” Pressenza denied the allegations; one of its journalists, Oleg Yasinsky, who says he is of Ukrainian origin, responded by denouncing America’s “planetary propaganda machine” and quoting Che Guevara.

Like Pressenza, Yala News also markets itself as independent. This U.K.-registered, Arabic-language news operation provides slickly produced videos, including celebrity interviews, to its 3 million followers every day. In March 2022, as the biolabs allegation was being promoted by other outlets, the site posted a video that echoed one of the most sensational versions: Ukraine was planning to use migratory birds as a delivery vehicle for bioweapons, infecting the birds and then sending them into Russia to spread disease.

Yala did not invent this ludicrous tale: Russian state media, such as the Sputnik news agency, published it in Russian first, followed by Sputnik’s Arabic website and RT Arabic. Russia’s United Nations ambassador addressed the UN Security Council about the biobird scandal, warning of the “real biological danger to the people in European countries, which can result from an uncontrolled spread of bioagents from Ukraine.” In an April 2022 interview in Kyiv , Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told The Atlantic ’s editor in chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, and me that the biobirds story reminded him of a Monty Python sketch. If Yala were truly an “independent” publication, as it describes itself, it would have fact-checked this story, which, like the other biolab conspiracies, was widely debunked.

Read: Anne Applebaum and Jeffrey Goldberg interview Volodymyr Zelensky

But Yala News is not a news organization at all. As the BBC has reported , it’s an information laundromat, a site that exists to spread and propagate material produced by RT and other Russian facilities. Yala News has posted claims that the Russian massacre of Ukrainian civilians at Bucha was staged, that Zelensky appeared drunk on television, and that Ukrainian soldiers were running away from the front lines. Although the company is registered to an address in London—a mail drop shared by 65,000 other companies—its “news team” is based in a suburb of Damascus. The company’s CEO is a Syrian businessman based in Dubai who, when asked by the BBC, insisted on the organization’s “impartiality.”

Another strange actor in this field is RRN—the company’s name is an acronym, originally for Reliable Russian News, later changed to Reliable Recent News. Created in the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, RRN, part of a bigger information-laundering operation known to investigators as Doppelganger, is primarily a “typosquatter”: a company that registers domain names that look similar to real media domain names—Reuters.cfd instead of Reuters.com, for example—as well as websites with names that sound authentic (like Notre Pays , or “Our Country”) but are created to deceive. RRN is prolific. During its short existence, it has created more than 300 sites targeting Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. Links to these sites are then used to make Facebook, Twitter, and other social-media posts appear credible. When someone is quickly scrolling, they might not notice that a headline links to a fake Spiegel.pro website, say, rather than to the authentic German-magazine website Spiegel.de.

Doppelganger’s efforts, run by a clutch of companies in Russia, have varied widely, and seem to have included fake NATO press releases , with the same fonts and design as the genuine releases, “revealing” that NATO leaders were planning to deploy Ukrainian paramilitary troops to France to quell pension protests. In November, operatives who the French government believes are linked to Doppelganger spray-painted Stars of David around Paris and posted them on social media, hoping to amplify French divisions over the Gaza war. Russian operatives built a social-media network to spread the false stories and the photographs of anti-Semitic graffiti. The goal is to make sure that the people encountering this content have little clue as to who created it, or where or why.

Russia and China are not the only parties in this space. Both real and automated social-media accounts geolocated to Venezuela played a small role in the 2018 Mexican presidential election, for example, boosting the campaign of Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Notable were two kinds of messages: those that promoted images of Mexican violence and chaos—images that might make people feel they need an autocrat to restore order—and those that were angrily opposed to NAFTA and the U.S. more broadly. This tiny social-media investment must have been deemed successful. After he became president, López Obrador engaged in the same kinds of smear campaigns as unelected politicians in autocracies, empowered and corrupted the military, undermined the independence of the judiciary, and otherwise degraded Mexican democracy. In office, he has promoted Russian narratives about the war in Ukraine along with Chinese narratives about the repression of the Uyghurs. Mexico’s relationship with the United States has become more difficult—and that, surely, was part of the point.

None of these efforts would succeed without local actors who share the autocratic world’s goals. Russia, China, and Venezuela did not invent anti-Americanism in Mexico. They did not invent Catalan separatism, to name another movement that both Russian and Venezuelan social-media accounts supported, or the German far right, or France’s Marine Le Pen. All they do is amplify existing people and movements—whether anti-LGBTQ, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant, anti-Ukrainian, or, above all, antidemocratic. Sometimes they provide a social-media echo. Sometimes they employ reporters and spokespeople. Sometimes they use the media networks they built for this purpose. And sometimes, they just rely on Americans to do it for them.

Here is a difficult truth: A part of the American political spectrum is not merely a passive recipient of the combined authoritarian narratives that come from Russia, China, and their ilk, but an active participant in creating and spreading them. Like the leaders of those countries, the American MAGA right also wants Americans to believe that their democracy is degenerate, their elections illegitimate, their civilization dying. The MAGA movement’s leaders also have an interest in pumping nihilism and cynicism into the brains of their fellow citizens, and in convincing them that nothing they see is true. Their goals are so similar that it is hard to distinguish between the online American alt-right and its foreign amplifiers, who have multiplied since the days when this was solely a Russian project. Tucker Carlson has even promoted the fear of a color revolution in America, lifting the phrase directly from Russian propaganda. The Chinese have joined in too: Earlier this year, a group of Chinese accounts that had previously been posting pro-Chinese material in Mandarin began posting in English, using MAGA symbols and attacking President Joe Biden. They showed fake images of Biden in prison garb, made fun of his age, and called him a satanist pedophile. One Chinese-linked account reposted an RT video repeating the lie that Biden had sent a neo-Nazi criminal to fight in Ukraine. Alex Jones’s reposting of the lie on social media reached some 400,000 people.

Given that both Russian and Chinese actors now blend in so easily with the MAGA messaging operation, it is hardly surprising that the American government has difficulty responding to the newly interlinked autocratic propaganda network. American-government-backed foreign broadcasters—Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Farda, Radio Martí—still exist, but neither their mandate nor their funding has changed much in recent years. The intelligence agencies continue to observe what happens—there is a Foreign Malign Influence Center under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence—but they are by definition not part of the public debate. The only relatively new government institution fighting antidemocratic propaganda is the Global Engagement Center, but it is in the State Department, and its mandate is to focus on authoritarian propaganda outside the United States. Established in 2016, it replaced the Center for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications, which sought to foil the Islamic State and other jihadist groups that were recruiting young people online. In 2014–15, as the scale of Russian disinformation campaigns in Europe was becoming better known, Congress designated the GEC to deal with Russian as well as Chinese, Iranian, and other propaganda campaigns around the world—although not, again, inside the United States. Throughout the Trump administration, the organization languished under the direction of a president who himself repeated Russian propaganda lines during the 2016 campaign—“Obama founded ISIS,” for example, and “Hillary will start World War III.”

Today the GEC is run by James Rubin, a former State Department spokesperson from the Bill Clinton era. It employs 125 people and has a budget of $61 million—hardly a match for the many billions that China and Russia spend building their media networks. But it is beginning to find its footing, handing out small grants to international groups that track and reveal foreign disinformation operations. It’s now specializing in identifying covert propaganda campaigns before they begin, with the help of U.S. intelligence agencies. Rubin calls this “prebunking” and describes it as a kind of “inoculation”: “If journalists and governments know that this is coming, then when it comes, they will recognize it.”

The revelation in November of the Russian ties to seemingly native left-wing websites in Latin America, including Pressenza, was one such effort. More recently, the GEC published a report on the African Initiative, an agency that had planned a huge campaign to discredit Western health philanthropy, starting with rumors about a new virus supposedly spread by mosquitoes. The idea was to smear Western doctors, clinics, and philanthropists, and to build a climate of distrust around Western medicine, much as Russian efforts helped build a climate of distrust around Western vaccines during the pandemic. The GEC identified the Russian leader of the project, Artem Sergeyevich Kureyev; noted that several employees had come to the African Initiative from the Wagner Group; and located two of its offices, in Mali and Burkina Faso. Rubin and others subsequently spent a lot of time talking with regional reporters about the African Initiative’s plans so that “people will recognize them” when they launch. Dozens of articles in English, Spanish, and other languages have described these operations, as have thousands of social-media posts. Eventually, the goal is to create an alliance of other nations who also want to share information about planned and ongoing information operations so that everyone knows they are coming.

It’s a great idea, but no equivalent agency functions inside the United States. Some social-media companies have made purely voluntary efforts to remove foreign-government propaganda, sometimes after being tipped off by the U.S. government but mostly on their own. In the U.S., Facebook created a security-policy unit that still regularly announces when it discovers “coordinated inauthentic behavior”—meaning accounts that are automated and/or evidently part of a planned operation from (usually) Russian, Iranian, or Chinese sources—and then takes down the posts. It is difficult for outsiders to monitor this activity, because the company restricts access to its data, and even controls the tools that can be used to examine the data. In March, Meta announced that by August, it would phase out CrowdTangle, a tool used to analyze Facebook data, and replace it with a tool that analysts fear will be harder to use.

X (formerly Twitter) also used to look for foreign propaganda activity, but under the ownership of Elon Musk, that voluntary effort has been badly weakened. The new blue-check “verification” process allows users—including anonymous, pro-Russian users—to pay to have their posts amplified; the old “safety team” no longer exists. The result: After the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in Ukraine last summer, a major environmental and humanitarian disaster caused by Russian bombing over many weeks, the false narrative that Ukraine had destroyed it appeared hundreds of thousands of times on X. After the ISIS terrorist attack on a concert hall in Moscow in March, David Sacks, the former PayPal entrepreneur and a close associate of Musk’s, posted on X, with no evidence, that “if the Ukrainian government was behind the terrorist attack, as looks increasingly likely, the U.S. must renounce it.” His completely unfounded post was viewed 2.5 million times. This spring, some Republican congressional leaders finally began speaking about the Russian propaganda that had “infected” their base and their colleagues. Most of that “Russian propaganda” is not coming from inside Russia.

Over the past several years, universities and think tanks have used their own data analytics to try to identify inauthentic networks on the largest websites—but they are also now meeting resistance from MAGA-affiliated Republican politicians. In 2020, teams at Stanford University and the University of Washington, together with the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council and Graphika, a company that specializes in social-media analytics, decided to join forces to monitor false election information. Renée DiResta, one of the leaders of what became the Election Integrity Partnership, told me that an early concern was Russian and Chinese campaigns. DiResta assumed that these foreign interventions wouldn’t matter much, but she thought it would be useful and academically interesting to understand their scope. “Lo and behold,” she said, “the entity that becomes the most persistent in alleging that American elections are fraudulent, fake, rigged, and everything else turns out to be the president of the United States.” The Election Integrity Partnership tracked election rumors coming from across the political spectrum, but observed that the MAGA right was far more prolific and significant than any other source.

The Election Integrity Partnership was not organized or directed by the U.S. government. It occasionally reached out to platforms, but had no power to compel them to act, DiResta told me. Nevertheless, the project became the focus of a complicated MAGA-world conspiracy theory about alleged government suppression of free speech, and it led to legal and personal attacks on many of those involved. The project has been smeared and mischaracterized by some of the journalists attached to Musk’s “Twitter Files” investigation , and by Representative Jim Jordan’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. A series of lawsuits alleging that the U.S. government sought to suppress conservative speech, including one launched by Missouri and Louisiana that has now reached the Supreme Court, has effectively tried to silence organizations that investigate both domestic and foreign disinformation campaigns, overt and covert. To state baldly what is happening: The Republican Party’s right wing is actively harassing legitimate, good-faith efforts to track the production and dissemination of autocratic disinformation here in the United States.

Over time, the attack on the Election Integrity Partnership has itself acquired some of the characteristics of a classic information-laundering operation. The most notorious example concerns a reference, on page 183 of the project’s final post-2020-election report, to the 21,897,364 tweets gathered after the election, in an effort to catalog the most viral false rumors. That simple statement of the size of the database has been twisted into another false and yet constantly repeated rumor: the spurious claim that the Department of Homeland Security somehow conspired with the Election Integrity Partnership to censor 22 million tweets. This never happened, and yet DiResta said that “this nonsense about the 22 million tweets pops up constantly as evidence of the sheer volume of our duplicity”; it has even appeared in the Congressional Record .

The same tactics have been used against the Global Engagement Center. In 2021, the GEC gave a grant to another organization, the Global Disinformation Index, which helped develop a technical tool to track online campaigns in East Asia and Europe. For a completely unrelated, separately funded project, the Global Disinformation Index also conducted a study, aimed at advertisers, that identified websites at risk for publishing false stories. Two conservative organizations, finding their names on that latter list, sued the GEC, although it had nothing to do with creating the list. Musk posted, again without any evidence, “The worst offender in US government censorship & media manipulation is an obscure agency called GEC,” and that organization also became caught up in the endless whirlwind of conspiracy and congressional investigations.

As it happens, I was caught up in it too, because I was listed online as an “adviser” to the Global Disinformation Index, even though I had not spoken with anyone at the organization for several years and was not aware that it even had a website. A predictable, and wearisome, pattern followed: false accusations (no, I was not advising anyone to censor anyone) and the obligatory death threats. Of course, my experience was mild compared with the experience of DiResta, who has been accused of being, as she put it, “the head of a censorship-industrial complex that does not exist.”

These stories are symptomatic of a larger problem: Because the American extreme right and (more rarely) the extreme left benefit from the spread of antidemocratic narratives, they have an interest in silencing or hobbling any group that wants to stop, or even identify, foreign campaigns. Senator Mark Warner, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told me that “we are actually less prepared today than we were four years ago” for foreign attempts to influence the 2024 election. This is not only because authoritarian propaganda campaigns have become more sophisticated as they begin to use AI, or because “you obviously have a political environment here where there’s a lot more Americans who are more distrustful of all institutions.” It’s also because the lawsuits, threats, and smear tactics have chilled government, academic, and tech-company responses.

One could call this a secret authoritarian “plot” to preserve the ability to spread antidemocratic conspiracy theories, except that it’s not a secret. It’s all visible, right on the surface. Russia, China, and sometimes other state actors—Venezuela, Iran, Hungary—work with Americans to discredit democracy, to undermine the credibility of democratic leaders, to mock the rule of law. They do so with the goal of electing Trump, whose second presidency would damage the image of democracy around the world, as well as the stability of democracy in America, even further.

This article appears in the June 2024 print edition with the headline “Democracy Is Losing the Propaganda War.” Anne Applebaum’s new book, Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World , will be published in July.

​When you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.

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As Bird Flu Looms, the Lessons of Past Pandemics Take On New Urgency

By John M. Barry

Mr. Barry, a scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, is the author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”

In 1918, an influenza virus jumped from birds to humans and killed an estimated 50 million to 100 million people in a world with less than a quarter of today’s population. Dozens of mammals also became infected.

Now we are seeing another onslaught of avian influenza. For years it has been devastating bird populations worldwide and more recently has begun infecting mammals , including cattle, a transmission never seen before. In another first, the virus almost certainly jumped recently from a cow to at least one human — fortunately, a mild case.

While much would still have to happen for this virus to ignite another human pandemic, these events provide another reason — as if one were needed — for governments and public health authorities to prepare for the next pandemic. As they do, they must be cautious about the lessons they might think Covid-19 left behind. We need to be prepared to fight the next war, not the last one.

Two assumptions based on our Covid experience would be especially dangerous and could cause tremendous damage, even if policymakers realized their mistake and adjusted quickly.

The first involves who is most likely to die from a pandemic virus. Covid primarily killed people 65 years and older , but Covid was an anomaly. The five previous pandemics we have reliable data about all killed much younger populations.

The 1889 pandemic most resembles Covid (and some scientists believe a coronavirus caused it). Young children escaped almost untouched and it killed mostly older people, but people ages 15 to 24 suffered the most excess mortality , or deaths above normal. Influenza caused the other pandemics, but unlike deaths from seasonal influenza, which usually kills older adults, in the 1957, 1968 and 2009 outbreaks, half or more deaths occurred in people younger than 65. The catastrophic 1918 pandemic was the complete reverse of Covid: Well over 90 percent of the excess mortality occurred in people younger than 65. Children under 10 were the most vulnerable, and those ages 25 to 29 followed.

Any presumption that older people would be the chief victims of the next pandemic — as they were in Covid — is wrong, and any policy so premised could leave healthy young adults and children exposed to a lethal virus.

The second dangerous assumption is that public health measures like school and business closings and masking had little impact. That is incorrect.

Australia, Germany and Switzerland are among the countries that demonstrated those interventions can succeed. Even the experience of the United States provides overwhelming, if indirect, evidence of the success of those public health measures.

The evidence comes from influenza, which transmits like Covid, with nearly one-third of cases transmitted by asymptomatic people. The winter before Covid, influenza killed an estimated 25,000 here ; in that first pandemic winter, influenza deaths were under 800. The public health steps taken to slow Covid contributed significantly to this decline, and those same measures no doubt affected Covid as well.

So the question isn’t whether those measures work. They do. It’s whether their benefits outweigh their social and economic costs. This will be a continuing calculation.

Such measures can moderate transmission, but they cannot be sustained indefinitely. And even the most extreme interventions cannot eliminate a pathogen that escapes initial containment if, like influenza or the virus that causes Covid-19, it is both airborne and transmitted by people showing no symptoms. Yet such interventions can achieve two important goals.

The first is preventing hospitals from being overrun. Achieving this outcome could require a cycle of imposing, lifting and reimposing public health measures to slow the spread of the virus. But the public should accept that because the goal is understandable, narrow and well defined.

The second objective is to slow transmission to buy time for identifying, manufacturing and distributing therapeutics and vaccines and for clinicians to learn how to manage care with the resources at hand. Artificial intelligence will perhaps be able to extrapolate from mountains of data which restrictions deliver the most benefits — whether, for example, just closing bars would be enough to significantly dampen spread — and which impose the greatest cost. A.I. should also speed drug development. And wastewater monitoring can track the pathogen’s movements and may make it possible to limit the locations where interventions are needed.

Still, what’s achievable will depend on the pathogen’s severity and transmissibility, and, as we sadly learned in the United States, how well — or poorly — leaders communicate the goals and the reasons behind them.

Specifically, officials will confront whether to impose the two most contentious interventions, school closings and mask mandates. What should they do?

Children are generally superspreaders of respiratory disease and can have disproportionate impact. Indeed, vaccinating children against pneumococcal pneumonia can cut the disease by 87 percent in people 50 and older. And schools were central to spreading the pandemics of 1957, 1968 and 2009. So there was good reason to think closing schools during Covid would save many lives.

In fact, closing schools did reduce Covid’s spread, yet the consensus view is that any gain was not worth the societal disruption and damage to children’s social and educational development. But that tells us nothing about the future. What if the next pandemic is deadlier than 1957’s but as in 1957, 48 percent of excess deaths are among those younger than 15 and schools are central to spread? Would it make sense to close schools then?

Masks present a much simpler question. They work. We’ve known they work since 1917, when they helped protect soldiers from a measles epidemic. A century later, all the data on Covid have actually demonstrated significant benefits from masks.

But whether to mandate masks is a difficult call. Too many people wear poorly fitted masks or wear them incorrectly. So even without adding in the complexities of politics, compliance is a problem. Whether government mask mandates will be worth the resistance they foment will depend on the severity of the virus.

That does not mean that institutions and businesses can’t or shouldn’t require masks. Nor does it mean we can’t increase the use of masks with better messaging. People accept smoking bans because they understand long-term exposure to secondhand smoke can cause cancer. A few minutes of exposure to Covid can kill. Messaging that combines self-protection with communitarian values could dent resistance significantly.

Individuals should want to protect themselves, given the long-term threat to their health. An estimated 7 percent of Americans have been affected by long Covid of varying severity, and a re-infection can still set it off in those who have so far avoided it. The 1918 pandemic also caused neurological and cardiovascular problems lasting decades, and children exposed in utero suffered worse health and higher mortality than their siblings. We can expect the same from the next pandemic.

What should we learn from the past? Every pandemic we have good information about was unique. That makes information itself the most valuable commodity. We must gather it, analyze it, act upon it and communicate it.

Epidemiological information can answer the biggest question: whether to deploy society-wide public health interventions at all. But the epidemiology of the virus is hardly the only information that matters. Before Covid vaccines were available, the single drug that saved the most lives was dexamethasone. Health officials in Britain discovered its effectiveness because the country has a shared data system that enabled them to analyze the efficacy of treatments being tried around the country. We have no comparable system in the United States. We need one.

Perhaps most important, government officials and health care experts must communicate to the public effectively. The United States failed dismally at this. There was no organized effort to counter social media disinformation, and experts damaged their own credibility by reversing their advice several times. They could have avoided these self-inflicted wounds by setting public expectations properly. The public should have been told that scientists had never seen this virus before, that they were giving their best advice based on their knowledge at the time and that their advice could — and probably would — change as more information came in. Had they done this, they probably would have retained more of the public’s confidence.

Trust matters. A pre-Covid analysis of the pandemic readiness of countries around the world rated the United States first because of its resources. Yet America had the second-worst rate of infections of any high-income country.

A pandemic analysis of 177 countries published in 2022 found that resources did not correlate with infections. Trust in government and fellow citizens did. That’s the lesson we really need to remember for the next time.

John M. Barry, a scholar at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, is the author of “The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History.”

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