The long-term analysis of its origins seeks to explain why two rival sets of powers – Germany and Austria-Hungary on the one hand, and Russia, France, Serbia and Great Britain on the other – had come into conflict by 1914. It examines political, territorial and economic conflicts, militarism, a complex web of alliances and alignments, imperialism, the growth of nationalism, and the power vacuum created by the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Other important long-term or structural factors were unresolved territorial disputes, the perceived breakdown of the balance of power in Europe,[1][2] convoluted and fragmented governance, the arms races of the previous decades, and military planning.[3]