Test Bank

Chapter 3: World War II: Why Did War Happen Again

Multiple Choice

1. The Wisconsin School—an interpretation of international relations and American foreign policy—is a part of the ______ perspective.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical Theory

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Critical Theory Perspective

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Which of the following factors contributed to the weakness of the League of Nations?

a. Soviet Union exceptionalism

b. Japanese and Italian aggression

c. Collective security

d. Appeasement at Munich

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. Which of the following factors did U.S. President Woodrow Wilson believe would “make the world safe for democracy?”

a. the granting of autonomy or self-determination to national minorities

b. the division and occupation of Germany after World War I

c. the spread of communism through alliances with the Soviet Union

d. the participation of civil society groups in social democratic institutions

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. Which of the following agreements was focused primarily on disarmament?

a. the Kellogg-Briand Pact

b. the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

c. the Treaty of Versailles

d. the Tripartite Pact

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Disarmament Agreements: The Washington Naval Conference and Kellogg-Briand Pact

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. For the Soviet Union, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact, signed with Germany, was an example of which of the following behaviors?

a. power balancing

b. bandwagoning

c. buckpassing

d. self-determination

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Germany Expands

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. The ______ perspective would most likely argue that the United States enjoys strategic immunity because of its geographic location.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Japan and the Pacific War

Difficulty Level: Medium

7. The Holocaust is an example of which of the following policies?

a. Lebensraum

b. Fascism

c. Genocide

d. Revanchism

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Fascist and Racist Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. During which of the following wars did Italy and Germany aid fascist rebels while the Soviet Union aided the republican government?

a. the Spanish Civil War

b. the Winter War (or the Russo-Finnish War)

c. the Russo-Japanese War

d. the invasion of Ethiopia by Italy

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Easy

9. In building communism in the Soviet Union, which of the following actions were not taken by the government?

a. The party system was eradicated.

b. The economy was rapidly industrialized, and agriculture was collectivized.

c. The military officer corps was purged.

d. The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Communist Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. The ______ perspective would most likely argue that the United States abstained from the League of Nations because of a political struggle for domestic power between U.S. president Woodrow Wilson and those who opposed him.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Realist Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

11. The ______ perspective would most likely argue that the United States didn’t join the League of Nations because of a sense of American exceptionalism.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Why the League of Nations Failed

Difficulty Level: Medium

12. Before World War II, cultural nationalism in Germany and Eastern Europe was accompanied by ______, the desire to annex or claim territory from another country on the basis of common identity.

a. irrendentism

b. self-determination

c. appeasement

d. Lebensraum

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Causes of Madness

Difficulty Level: Medium

13. Arguing that elite groups in Germany, each with their own material interests in expansion, created strategic myths that justified expansion is an example of an argument from the ______ perspective.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Why Don’t Hegemons Stop?

Difficulty Level: Medium

14. Before World War II, which of the following pairs of states exemplified the concept of social democracy?

a. the United States and Great Britain

b. Great Britain and France

c. Germany and France

d. the United States and Japan

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal and Social Democracy

Difficulty Level: Medium

15. Which of the following arrangements involves a common institution seeking to restrain an aggressive state by ordering it to desist and, if necessary, threatening it with economic sanctions?

a. power balancing

b. Collective Security

c. buckpassing

d. security resolution

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Causes of Madness

Difficulty Level: Easy

16. Which of the following events does the liberal perspective identify as a critical event in the timeline prior to World War II?

a. Appeasement at Munich in 1938

b. the development of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

c. the Spanish Civil War

d. Germany’s annexation of Austria

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Germany Expands

Difficulty Level: Easy

17. Because of America’s sense of ______, America feels it is set apart from the rest of the world by its progressive, freedom-loving, and pacifist nature.

a. exceptionalism

b. entitlement

c. independence

d. appeasement

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal and Social Democracy

Difficulty Level: Medium

18. Which international institution embodied the concept of collective security?

a. The League of Nations

b. The Tripartite Pact

c. The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere

d. The Court of International Justice

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Collective Security, Not Balance of Power

Difficulty Level: Medium

19. The Munich Conference of 1938, which involved Germany, France, Britain, and Italy, is an example of which of the following behaviors?

a. defensive realism

b. buckpassing

c. unanimity

d. appeasement

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Germany Expands

Difficulty Level: Medium

20. Which of the following led Japan to consider a preemptive first strike against the United States?

a. an oil embargo imposed by the United States

b. the establishment of military bases in Hawaii by the United States

c. an embargo on tin and rubber imposed by the United States

d. growing U.S. power in Asia via an alliance with China

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Japan and the Pacific War

Difficulty Level: Easy

21. The ______ perspective is most likely to argue that World War II resulted from the United States’ imperialistic policies, which pressed for economic access to China, Europe, and colonial territories.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Critical Theory Perspective

Difficulty Level: Medium

22. German leaders justified expansion and conquest as a quest for lebensraum, a term which refers to what goal?

a. the genocide of ethnic groups considered inferior by Nazi ideology

b. the acquisition of more land as a living space for the German racial community

c. a return to Germany’s great power status, which was undermined by the Treaty of Versailles

c. a repeal of the “war guilt” provisions of the Treaty of Versailles

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Chapter Introduction

Difficulty Level: Easy

23. Which of the following events does the identity perspective identify as a critical event in the timeline prior to World War II?

a. the establishment and subsequent failure of the League of Nations

b. the rise of exceptionalism in the United States, fascism in Italy, and communism in the Soviet Union

c. French occupation of the Ruhr Valley, Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and German annexation of Austria

d. the invasion of Manchuria by Japanese military forces

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer Location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Medium

24. The ______ perspectives would most likely argue that World War II was caused by a united and powerful Germany, which disrupted the balance of power.

a. realist

b. liberal

c. identity

d. critical theory

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Realist Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

25. According to the identity perspective, which of the following contributed to the outbreak of World War II?

a. the failure of Great Britain, France, Poland, Russia, and the United States to align against Germany

b. ineffective leadership of Congress by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson

c. the spread of fascism, socialism, and racism and the retreat of democracy

d. the failure of the League of Nations to solve collective security problems

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Medium

26. What is cultural nationalism?

a. a form of nationalism that demands changes in national boundaries to bring together people sharing historical memories and speaking the same languages

b. a form of nationalism that glorifies one national culture over others

c. a form of nationalism that emphasizes militarization and racial superiority

d. a form of nationalism that seeks revenge for past wrongdoings against a group of people

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer location: Cultural Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Medium

27. Which of Germany’s borders were guaranteed by The Locarno Pact?

a. Germany’s eastern borders with Poland and Czechoslovakia

b. Germany’s western borders with France and Denmark

c. Germany’s southern borders with Switzerland and Austria

d. Germany’s northern border with Sweden

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Rapallo and Locarno

Difficulty Level: Easy

28. The ______ factor is typically stressed by the liberal or identity perspectives but is sometimes added to realist arguments to explain outcomes?

a. cognitive

b. material

c. economic

d. socioeconomic

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer location: Rigid Alliances and Preemptive War

Difficulty Level: Medium

29. Which of the following states was designated as permanent members of the Council of the League of Nations?

a. Venezuela

b. Canada

c. Japan

d. Ethiopia

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Medium

30. According to the liberal perspective, which of the following events at the domestic level of analysis contributed to the outbreak of World War II?

a. Divided domestic interests in the United States led it to reject membership in the League of Nations.

b. The German economy collapsed before World War I.

c. A power vacuum was created by many new weak states in Eastern Europe and a weak China in Asia.

d. Aggressive interests of various domestic groups in Germany caused leaders to go to war.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Why the League of Nations Failed

Difficulty Level: Medium

31. According to the identity perspective, what factors at the domestic level of analysis caused World War I?

a. the rise of hyponationalism in Germany that stressed racial superiority and militarism

b. the alliance of democracies precipitated by the development of liberal nationalism in the United States and Great Britain

c. divisions between Congress and the presidency in the United States, which delayed the country’s entry into the war

d. cartelized German domestic interests that made Germany act aggressively

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Identity Explanations

Difficulty Level: Medium

32. Which describes one of the reasons the League of Nations failed?

a. The Soviet Union did not join, so the League of Nations never achieved a preponderance of power.

b. The League of Nations failed to provide credible economic commitments to support all members.

c. The principle of unanimity was undercut by the fact that all states had veto power, so the aggressor state could veto any resolution.

d. The Covenant of the League of Nations was based on the agreement reached at the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic Wars that decentralized military power.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Why the League of Nations Failed

Difficulty Level: Medium

33. ______ escaped invasion by German land forces between 1939 and 1941.

a. The Soviet Union

b. France

c. Norway

d. Great Britain

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Another Two-Front War

Difficulty Level: Easy

34. Which of the following acts immediately caused World War II?

a. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations.

b. Germany annexed the Sudetenland.

c. Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to a nonaggression pact.

d. Germany invaded Poland.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Another Two-Front War

Difficulty Level: Easy

35. Arguing that the United States enjoyed strategic immunity because it is separated from other great powers by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is to argue for the importance of which of the following factors?

a. geopolitics

b. offensive realism

c. liberal democracy

d. strategic culture

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Japan and the Pacific War

Difficulty Level: Easy

36. In 1936, Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact with which country?

a. the Soviet Union

b. China

c. Germany

d. Italy

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Japan and the Pacific War

Difficulty Level: Easy

37. U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt placed an oil embargo on Japan to prevent it from attacking which of the following states?

a. United States

b. Soviet Union

c. States of Southeast Asia

d. China

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Japan and the Pacific War

Difficulty Level: Easy

38. The ______ school of realism contends that states always seek dominant power.

a. defensive

b. classical

c. offensive

d. neo

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Offensive Imperatives

Difficulty Level: Easy

39. The new Europe founded after World War I was based on which of the following principles?

a. self-determination

b. mutual armament

c. alliances

d. power balancing

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal Accounts

Difficulty Level: Easy

40. By pursuing an aggressive, expansionist foreign policy, Germany demonstrated that it had what sort of goals?

a. isolationist

b. revisionist

c. irredentist

d. revanchist

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Easy

41. What is chain-ganging?

a. a free-riding strategy wherein a country allows other countries to fight conflicts while it stays on the sidelines

b. a policy of making concessions to a stronger foe because one is unwilling to consider the use of force

c. the aligning of states with a greater power to share the spoils of dominance

d. the creation of a rigid defensive alliance

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Role of Misperceptions in Realist Accounts

Difficulty Level: Easy

42. Before World War II, communism in the Soviet Union was built by which two leaders?

a. Lenin and Marx

b. Khrushchev and Brezhnev

c. Stalin and Gorbachev

d. Lenin and Stalin

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Communist Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Easy

43. Fascist and military groups engulfed all but which of the following countries?

a. Germany

b. Italy

c. Japan

d. Great Britain

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Easy

Multiple Response

1. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following arguments are examples of an argument at the systemic level of analysis?

a. Anarchy forced Germany to act offensively.

b. Unstable tripolarity brought Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union into conflict.

c. Germany’s cartelized political system led to logrolling politics and the creation of myths of empire.

d. The Soviet Union was going to surpass Germany in relative power, leading Germany to plan for a preventive war.

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Why Don’t Hegemons Stop?

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following were stipulated in the Treaty of Versailles?

a. The Rhineland was to be demilitarized.

b. Germany was to be partitioned and occupied.

c. Poland was restored as an independent state.

d. The “Polish Corridor” divided East Prussia from the rest of Germany.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Versailles Treaty

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following are examples of German military expansion before World War II?

a. aggression in Ethiopia and Manchuria

b. the annexation of the Sudetenland

c. the remilitarization of the Rhineland

d. the invasion of Czechoslovakia and Poland

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Germany Expands

Difficulty Level: Easy

4. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. In building communism in the Soviet Union, which of the following actions were taken by the government?

a. The party system was eradicated.

b. The economy was rapidly industrialized, and agriculture was collectivized.

c. The military officer corps was purged.

d. The Soviet Union joined the League of Nations.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Communist Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. In his famous Fourteen Points, U.S. President Woodrow Wilson advocated for which of the following?

a. general disarmament

b. impartial settlement of colonial claims

c. freedom of the seas

d. internationalization of the Dardanelles

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer location: Liberal Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. Arguing that a state assessed the balance of power incorrectly can be an example of an argument from which two perspectives, depending on what caused the incorrect assessment?

a. the realist perspective

b. the liberal perspective

c. the identity perspective

d. the critical theory perspective

Cognitive Domain: Analysis

Answer location: Role of Misperceptions in Realist Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

True/False

1. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson believed that self-determination would not lead to democracy.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Woodrow Wilson was against the United States joining the League of Nations.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Easy

3. Under a new, centralized institution, protection for all countries would be achieved not through the balance of power but through the preponderance of power.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. The Council of the League of Nations was initially composed of nine members, five of which were permanent members, while the Assembly included all members.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Easy

5. The Kellogg-Briand Pact was an effective diplomatic mechanism that urged all signatories to renounce war as an instrument of national policy.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Disarmament Agreements: The Washington Naval Conference and Kellogg-Briand Pact

Difficulty Level: Medium

6. The Hoare-Laval Plan was an attempt to balance power against Germany by aligning with Italy through the division of Ethiopia into two parts.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Italian Aggression in Ethiopia

Difficulty Level: Easy

7. The Treaty of Versailles was effective from the realist perspective because it divided Germany into smaller states, thus mitigating the threat of a strong, united Germany.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: American Isolationism

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. Buckpassing is the practice of states aligning with a greater power to share the spoils of dominance.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Another Two-Front War

Difficulty Level: Medium

9. The Treaty of Rapallo opened up full diplomatic relations between Germany and Austria.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Rapallo and Locarno

Difficulty Level: Easy

10. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points advocated for territorial adjustments, including the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France and the creation of Poland as a state.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Causes of Madness

Difficulty Level: Easy

11. The principle of unanimity meant that only the great powers decided what constituted a threat to international peace and security.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Easy

12. The Council of the League of Nations had special veto power over decisions made in the assembly.

Cognitive Domain:

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level:

13. The economic sanctions invoked by the League of Nations against Italy were effective, and Italy, soon after, left Ethiopia.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Italian Aggression in Ethiopia

Difficulty Level: Easy

14. Buckpassing is a free-riding strategy wherein a country allows other countries to fight conflicts while it stays on the sidelines.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Another Two-Front Way

Difficulty Level: Easy

Short Answer

1. Based on the principle of ______, autonomy was granted to the national minorities of Austria-Hungary and Turkey after World War I.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Identity Matters

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. Self-determination and unanimity are ______ norms.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: American Exceptionalism

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. ______ democracy values the constitutional rights of individuals and promotes a free-market economic system based on private property and competition.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Liberal and Social Democracy

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. ______ refers to the systematic persecution and extermination of a group of people based on their national, ethnic, racial, or religious identity.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Fascist and Racist Nationalism

Difficulty Level: Medium

5. The United States did not join the League of Nations because of its policy of ______.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Causes of Madness

Difficulty Level: Easy

6. The “war guilt” clause of the Treaty of Versailles stated that ______ was solely responsible for causing World War I.

Cognitive Domain: Knowledge

Answer Location: Versailles Treaty

Difficulty Level: Easy

7. According to some arguments from the realist perspective, geography and technology make it difficult to project land power across water, a limitation on expansion referred to as ______.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Why Don’t Hegemons Stop?

Difficulty Level: Medium

8. ______ is a special form of multipolarity that is uniquely unstable.

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Why Don’t Hegemons Stop?

Difficulty Level: Medium

Essay

1. How did the League of Nations, according to its Covenant, seek to resolve conflicts?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: The League of Nations

Difficulty Level: Medium

2. According to the realist perspective, what role did buckpassing, bandwagoning, chain-ganging, and appeasement play in the rise of Germany before World War II?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Another Two-Front War

Difficulty Level: Medium

3. What role do misperceptions play in arguments from the realist perspective?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Role of Misperceptions in Realist Accounts

Difficulty Level: Medium

4. In what ways is a collective security system an alternative to a balance-of-power system?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Collective Security, Not Balance of Power

Difficulty Level: Hard

5. Why did the League of Nations fail?

Cognitive Domain: Application

Answer Location: Why the League of Nations Failed

Difficulty Level: Hard

6. According to the realist perspective, why don’t hegemons stop expanding?

Cognitive Domain: Comprehension

Answer Location: Why Don’t Hegemons Stop?

Difficulty Level: Medium