IR 002: Lecture 15

Question 1

What are some of the recent trends in warfare?

Answer 1

-Growing role of women (ex. women account for 15% of the United States military)
-“Gray zone” operations (efforts to calibrate actions so as to avoid provoking a military response)
-Less and less violent deaths caused by wars (ex. 2015 9 out of 10 violent deaths occurred outside of war)
-Growing disconnect from warfare (end of conscription in many western countries)

Question 2

What are some of the likely trends of wars in the future?

Answer 2

-More urban warfare (260,000 shanty towns and slums worldwide)
-New technologies (drones, robotics/AI, Exoskeletons/enhanced physiological & cognitive attributes)
-Further expansion of war beyond the battlefield (disrupt infrastructure, attack societal cohesion, etc.)

Question 3

What are the three main levels of analysis for underlying causes of international wars?

Answer 3

-Individual level of analysis
-State level of analysis
-International level of analysis

Question 4

True or false all wars have a singular cause and there are no ongoing debates about the causes of wars.

Answer 4

False

Question 5

What are the main immediate causes of war?

Answer 5

-Territory (55% of wars in the last 300 years were at least partly about territory)
-Scarce economic resources (ex. 1967 Arab-Israeli war for water)

Question 6

What could explain a potential war in the South China sea?

Answer 6

-Territorial disputes
-Oil and gas deposits
-Control of vital trade routes
-US-China encirclement/counter-encirclement

Question 7

How does the individual level of analysis help determine possible causes for an international war?

Answer 7

Look at the leaders:
-Human Nature (biological predisposition for violence, psychological bias toward intolerance, etc.)
-Fear (pathologically defensive reactions to a perceived existential threat)
-Stress Levels (ex. before WWI there was the belief that time was working against leader which lead them to hastily go to war)

Question 8

How does the state level of analysis help determine possible causes for an international war?

Answer 8

Look at the national state or society:
-Domestic politics (leaders can launch wars to divert attention away from domestic problems (ex. Argentina’s decision to launch the Falklands war vs. Britain))
-Regime-type (ex. democracy vs. dictatorship)
-Nationalism (can aggravate rivalries)
-Institutional bias (ex. the can-do attitude of militaries (claim nothing in beyond their reach)
-Corporate Lobbying (some corporations have a vested interest in war (ex. weapons manufacturers)

Question 9

How does the international level of analysis help determine possible causes for an international war?

Answer 9

-The anarchy of the international system exacerbates the risk of war
-States are insecure and mistrust each other
-Commitment problem (given the absence of an international government, states…fear that any diplomatic agreement they reach with an adversary to stave off war might be violated at some point in the future (ex. the United States abandoned negotiations because it did not trust that Iraq would honor any agreement))

Question 10

Approximately how many internal wars occurred between 1816-2007?

Answer 10

334

Question 11

Since 2005 what percentage of armed conflicts in the world were were at least initially internal wars?

Answer 11

95%

Question 12

What are the 3 types of internal wars?

Answer 12

-Civil Wars
-Inter-communal wars
-Inter-factional wars

Question 13

What is a civil war?

Answer 13

A sustained clash between forces that are controlled by the national government and forces that are controlled by an organized group within the country (ex. South Sudan has had 3 civil wars since 1955)

Question 14

What is an inter-communal war?

Answer 14

Wars in which members of different religious communities in a country become embroiled in large-scale organized violence (ex. British India (1946-1947) between the Hindus and Muslims)

Question 15

What is an inter-factional war?

Answer 15

War among political groups (ex. communist groups fighting each other during Chinas Cultural Resolution from (1966-1976))

Question 16

What percentage of internal wars are inter-communal wars?

Answer 16

5%

Question 17

What are the possible international impacts of internal wars?

Answer 17

-May spread to other countries (troops hiding in neighboring countries, arrival of refugees, etc.)
-May cause neighbors to exploit the vulnerability of the state affected by the civil war (ex. Iraq attacked Iran because Iran was going through an Islamic revolution)
-Foreign states may intervene to support some of the protagonists of a war (ex. Iran intervened to support Yemen’s Shia Muslims while states like Saudi Arabia intervened to support Yemen’s Sunni Muslims)

Question 18

How does the individual level of analysis help determine possible causes for an internal war?

Answer 18

-Greed
-Grievance (person’s belief that he or she is being victimized by or excluded from important institutions)

Question 18

How does the state level of analysis help determine possible causes for an internal war?

Answer 18

-Degree of weakness of the state
-If the state is vulnerable, a civil war is likely because potential rebels perceive an opportunity (ex. potential uprisings in Russia if Russia loses the Ukraine War?)

Question 19

How does the international level of analysis help determine possible causes for an internal war?

Answer 19

-Inter-state wars increase the risk of uprising (people turn against the leaders deemed responsible for casualties and deprivations)