Azar Gat

Born in Israel, Gat holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Haifa (1978), a master's degree from Tel Aviv University (1983), and a doctorate from the University of Oxford (1986). He served as a major in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Since 1987, Gat has been on the faculty of the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University (now the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs), where he is currently a full professor and the incumbent of the Ezer Weizman Chair in National Security. He has twice served as head of the department. Gat also founded and heads the Executive MA Program in Security and Diplomacy{{Cite web |title=Executive MA Program in Security and Diplomacy |url=https://social-sciences.tau.ac.il/sec-dip-exec/goal |language=he}} and the International MA Program in Security and Diplomacy.{{Cite web |title=International MA Program in Security and Diplomacy, Tel Aviv University |url=https://secdip.tau.ac.il/about-us}} He is academic advisor to the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

The History of Military Thought

Gat's first book, The Origins of Military Thought from the Enlightenment to Clausewitz (1989), merged two fields that were until then completely separate: strategic thought and the history of ideas. The book showed that the military thought of the 18th century grew out of the ideas of the Enlightenment and sought to create a general theory of war based on universal rules and principles. Prussian general and military theorist Carl von Clausewitz's criticism of it has now been explained as an expression of the sweeping reaction of Romanticism against the ideas of the Enlightenment from the turn of the 19th century.

In The Development of Military Thought: The Nineteenth Century (1992), Gat continued presenting the main schools of military thought of the 19th century. His book Fascist and Liberal Visions of War: Fuller, Liddell Hart, Douhet, and Other Modernists (1998) revealed the close relationship that existed in the first decades of the 20th century between the leading theorists of mechanized warfare (both land and air) and futurist and fascist currents which conjured visions of an elitist and mechanized future world. The book also presented the thought of Basil Liddell Hart in liberal, post-World War I Britain as a pioneering expression of ideas that would become the basis of how liberal democratic societies relate to war and its conduct. In both this book and in his 2000 book British Armor Theory and the Rise of the Panzer Arm: Revising the Revisionists, Gat refuted the accusations leveled against Liddell Hart regarding the alleged falsification of his influence on the formation of German armor doctrine prior to World War II.

His books from 1989, 1992 and 1998 were collected into a single volume, A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War (2001).

What is War? Basic Questions

Gat's 2006 book War in Human Civilization is an interdisciplinary work that critically examines knowledge and insights from the fields of anthropology, evolutionary theory, political science, history, sociology, economics, and international relations in order to provide answers to age-old questions, some of which have been considered unsolvable. Since when have humans fought each other? Was the state of human nature before agriculture and the state warlike (as Hobbes claimed) or peaceful (as Rousseau claimed)? What are the reasons for war? How did the appearance of states, the process of modernization, and liberal democracy affect war? The book was chosen by the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) as one of the books of the year for 2006, and has been translated into Japanese, Korean and Chinese.{{Cite web |title=Prof. Azar Gat, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tel Aviv University |url=https://social-sciences.tau.ac.il/profile/azargat |language=he}}

The Struggles of Democracies against Their Non-Democratic Rivals (Past and Future)

Gat's 2010 book Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How it is still Imperiled? examines the reasons for the democracy's ascendence in the world during the last two centuries, and the relevance of this process to the question of the future development of China and Russia in the 21st century. In addition, the book analyzes the dangers of unconventional terrorism. Victorious and Vulnerable won the book of the year award of the Israeli Political Science Association for 2010.{{Cite web |title=The Israeli Political Science Association Annual Conference (2010) |url=https://www.eng.ispsa.org/_files/ugd/3bd757_ad139e1b441c4163893a5b1fdd8c9a35.pdf |language=he}} The return of the authoritarian-capitalist great powers to the international arena was at the center of two articles published by Gat in the journal Foreign Affairs in 2007 and 2009, at a time when most researchers believed that the final victory of democracy had already been achieved.

The Phenomenon of Nationalism

Gat's 2013 book Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism (with Alexander Yakobson), refutes the claim that nationalism is a purely artificial, if not completely manipulative, modern phenomenon. The book shows that the close relationship between ethnicity and the state has existed since the appearance of states at the beginning of history. Modernity led to the tightening of national ties and their empowerment through the concepts of popular sovereignty and civil equality. However, the book argues that there is no basis for the claim that national ties - which in the past as in the present have always given rise to powerful manifestations of collective identity, sacrifice and devotion - are new or superficial. The book has been translated into Spanish, Turkish and Korean.

The Causes of War

Gat's 2017 book The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound? lays out the system of human motivations that lead to war, a subject that has hitherto been completely neglected in the literature of international relations. The book shows how the process of modernization in the last two centuries has resulted in a continuous decrease in the incidence of war since 1815 because it has changed the relative attractiveness between the three fundamental strategies of human social behavior: cooperation, peaceful competition, and violent conflict. The book also explains the major exception to this trend: the two world wars. Gat refutes the popular belief that war has become more expensive and more costly in the modern industrial age and shows instead that it is peace that has become more profitable.

Ideological Fixation

In his book Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars (2022), Gat again combines knowledge from a variety of disciplines. The book attempts to resolve the paradox according to which everyone recognizes the phenomenon of ideological fixation and the bias in the factual interpretation of reality it involves, and yet, so often, fall victim to it.

The Clausewitz Myth, or the Emperor's New Clothes

Returning to the subject of his first book, Gat argues in his 2024 book that Clausewitz's reputation has been largely inflated because of the notorious difficulties of understanding his major book, On War (1832). Clausewitz changed his mind on the most crucial aspects of his analysis of war half-way through the writing of that book and died before he was able to complete it. Gat writes that many of Clausewitz's interpreters, struggling to make sense of the On War that we have, have not admitted - to themselves no less than to their readers - that they did not quite figure it out. Hence, "the emperor's new clothes." The Clausewitz Myth seeks to clarify Clausewitz's train of thought and remove the veils of mystification and idolization that have surrounded his work.

Military Theory and the Conduct of War: What is Strategy All About?

Warfare has been radically transformed throughout history, mostly under the influence of technological change. But is there anything enduring that can be determined about it? In his book that addresses this question, Gat discusses the relationship between politics and war, the meanings of ‘victory’, the distinction between offense and defense, and the significance of concepts like the ‘principles of war’ and military doctrine. He analyses the successive military innovations of modernity, including the advent of nuclear weapons and the ongoing cyber and robotics revolutions of our own times. He also explains why guerrilla warfare and terrorism have grown increasingly important, and where they are heading. With China and Russia posing a growing challenge to the global order, as Gat argues, he asks if war is in our nature - or if it is, in fact, declining.

• {{cite book |title=The Origins of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to Clausewitz |year=1989 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198229483 |pages=}}
• {{cite book |title=The Development of Military Thought: The Nineteenth Century |year=1992 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198202462 |pages=}}
• {{cite book |title=Fascist and Liberal Visions of War: Fuller, Liddell Hart, Douhet, and Other Modernists |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0198207153 |pages=}}
• {{cite book |title=British Armour Theory and the Rise of the Panzer Arm: Revising the Revisionists |year=2000 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0312229528 |pages=}}
• {{cite book |title=War in a Changing World |year=2001 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=9780472111855 |pages= |edition= |editor=Zeev Maoz}}
• {{cite book |title=A History of Military Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Cold War |year=2001 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location= |isbn=9780199247622 |pages= |url=}}
• {{cite book |title=War in Human Civilization |year=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location= |isbn=978-0199236633 |pages=}}
• {{cite book |title=Victorious and Vulnerable: Why Democracy Won in the 20th Century and How it is Still Imperiled |year=2010 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |location= |isbn=978-1442201149 |pages= |url= |url-access=}}
• {{cite book |title=Nations: The Long History and Deep Roots of Political Ethnicity and Nationalism |year=2012 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location= |isbn=978-1107400023 |pages=}}
• {{Cite book |title=The Causes of War and the Spread of Peace: But Will War Rebound? |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2017 |isbn=9780198795025}}
• {{Cite book |title=War and Strategy in the Modern World: From Blitzkrieg to Unconventional Terrorism |publisher=Routledge |year=2018 |isbn=9781138632561}}
• {{Cite book |title=Ideological Fixation: From the Stone Age to Today's Culture Wars |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2022 |isbn=9780197646700}}
• {{Cite book |title=The Clausewitz Myth: Or the Emperor's New Clothes |publisher=Chronos Books |year=2024 |isbn=9781803416212}}
• {{Cite book |title=Military Theory and the Conduct of War: What Is Strategy All About? |publisher=Hurst Publishers |year=2025 |isbn=9781911723936}}

• {{cite journal|title=Clausewitz and the Marxists: Yet Another Look|journal=Journal of Contemporary History|date=April 1992|volume=27|issue=2|pages=363–384|doi=10.1177/002200949202700208|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|s2cid=144894230}}
• {{cite journal|title=The Hidden Sources of Liddell Hart's Strategic Ideas|journal=War in History|date=July 1996|volume=3|issue=3|pages=293–308|doi=10.1177/096834459600300303|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|s2cid=144246594}}
• {{cite journal|title=The Democratic Peace Theory Reframed: The Impact of Modernity|journal=World Politics|date=October 2005|volume=58|issue=1|pages=73–100|doi=10.1353/wp.2006.0017|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|s2cid=143286869}}
• {{cite journal |title=The Return of Authoritarian Great Powers |journal=Foreign Affairs |last=Gat |first=Azar |date=July–August 2007 |volume=86 |issue=4 |url=http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/62644/azar-gat/the-return-of-authoritarian-great-powers?page=show}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Gat, Azar, Daniel Deudney, G. John Ikenberry, Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel |date=July–August 2009 |title=Which Way Is History Marching? Debating the Authoritarian Revival |url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2009-07-01/which-way-history-marching |journal=Foreign Affairs |volume=88 |issue=4}}
• {{cite journal|title=So Why Do People Fight? Evolutionary Theory and the Causes of War|journal=European Journal of International Relations|date=December 2009|volume=15|issue=4|pages=571–599|doi=10.1177/1354066109344661|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|s2cid=144675572}}
• {{cite journal |title=Is War Declining – And Why? |journal=Journal of Peace Research |date=March 2013 |volume=50 |doi=10.1177/0022343312461023 |last1=Gat |first1=Azar |issue=2 |pages=149–157 |s2cid=146758067}}
• {{cite journal|title=Proving Communal Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers: The Quasi-Rousseauan Error|journal=Evolutionary Anthropology|date=May 2015|volume=24|doi=10.1002/evan.21446|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|issue=3|pages=111-126|s2cid=20075729}}
• {{cite journal|title=Is War in Our Nature? What Is Right and What Is Wrong about the Seville Statement on Violence|journal=Human Nature|date=June 2019|volume=30|doi=10.1007/s12110-019-09342-8|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|issue=2|pages=149-154|s2cid=}}
• {{cite journal|title=Is the Decline of War a Delusion? The Long Peace Phenomenon and the Modernization Peace – the Explanation that Refutes or Subsumes All Others|journal=Journal of Strategic Studies|date=November 2024|volume=47|doi=10.1080/01402390.2024.2421770|last1=Gat|first1=Azar|issue=6-7|pages=776-800|s2cid=|doi-access=free}}

{{Reflist}}

• [https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/14/opinion/14iht-edgat.1.6137311.html The Return of Authoritarian Capitalists], op-ed in NY Times, June 14, 2007
• [https://archive.today/20130130001914/http://newbooksinhistory.com/?p=2714 Interview] with Gat on "New Books in History"
• [https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Azar-Gat-2076307238 Azar Gat's research while affiliated with Tel Aviv University and other places]

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Category:1959 births

Category:Living people

Category:Theoretical historians

Category:Israeli military historians

Category:Academic staff of Tel Aviv University

Category:University of Haifa alumni