Examine the long- and short-term causes of one 20th-century war.

Candidates must consider the role of long- and short-term causes of one 20th-century war. Candidates should go beyond description of the causes and instead consider their significance. It would be valid for candidates to propose that long-term causes may have laid the foundations for the emergence of short-term or immediate causes. An exact balance between the two types of cause is not necessary. A wide variety of approaches is possible. Long-term cultural, ethnic, economic or religious causes may have produced festering resentment, while in the shorter term the war may have been triggered by particular events, such as the accession to power of aggressive leaders, or sudden changes in policy that made countries or groups feel under threat. The terms long and short term are not susceptible to exact definition; examiners should be flexible.