Author: Nicholas A. Lambert<br />File Type: pdf<br />Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germanyeconomic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britains effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shippingthe essential infrastructure underpinning global tradeto create a controlled implosion of the world economic system.In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damagepolitical, social, economic, and diplomaticto both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system.Lamberts interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitzs political conditions of war.ReviewA magnificent achievement, one of the most important books in decades on the origins and conduct of the Great War. Lambert offers a complete rethinking of British strategy before and into the war. Readers will be feasting on this rich meal for years.--Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., University of the South, emeritus (20120801)Lambert sheds important new light on why British politicians agreed to go to war in 1914, how the management of economic warfare and blockade was instrumental in transforming the government, and why we need to rethink Washingtons relations with London. With a what-happened next quality that makes the reader keep turning pages, this book is a major contribution that will completely revise how we understand Britains role in the First World War.--Keith Neilson, Royal Military College of CanadaA remarkable academic achievement. By restoring economic theories of victory to their central place in the planning and early operations of World War I, Lambert reminds us how much of fundamental importance remains to be learned about that conflict, even after nearly a century.--Arthur Waldron, University of PennsylvaniaReaders of British naval strategy in the Fisher era will be seduced and provoked by this admirably engaging, significant, and persuasive book. It is a work of meticulous scholarship, based on exhaustive exploration of sources, and challenging in its interpretations. Lambert is an outstanding scholar at the height of his powers.--Cameron Hazlehurst, FRSL, FRHistS, Australian National UniversityThis massive, comprehensively researched work asserts Britains attempt to solve a strategic problem by economics. A plan to destroy the German economy in the initial stage of World War I was modified only when its initial implementation threatened a global financial panic. Lamberts controversial and persuasive description of a British counterpart to the Schlieffen Plan, challenging a centurys conventional wisdom, is a page turner.--Dennis Showalter, Colorado CollegeThe story of how tensions during World War I took a different course from the Napoleonic era illuminates economic warfares limitations with broader lessons for what it can and cannot accomplish. In Planning Armageddon, Nicholas Lambert meticulously reconstructs the process by which Britain developed and then implemented plans for economic warfare against Germany. His well-written, though detailed, account provides a revisionist interpretation of British strategy which calls into question received opinion on how the Royal Navy aimed to fight a European war.--William Anthony Hay (Policy Review ) About the AuthorNicholas A. Lambert is Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute, Whitehall, London. His first book, Sir John Fishers Naval Revolution, won the Distinguished Book Prize from the Society for Military History.