lect2 - living in conflict Flashcards
learning objectives + conclusion (slides)
what polsci says about conflicts/war and its consequences vs lived experiences
emotional prism vs polsci prism
objectives:
- discuss what it is like ‘living in conflict’
- what are some of the consequences of war and armed conflict?
conclusions
- Political science approaches to studying war and armed conflict provide many important insights
- But much less useful capturing the individual and collective experience of ‘living in conflict’
the problem
Political science EXPLAINS a great deal about the war phenomena, but it also MISSES a great deal, and potentially DISTORTS our understanding as much as it informs it.
In today’s class we’ll compare and contrast a more WIDE-RANGING DISCUSSION of the war phenomenon with how MAINSTREAM POLITICAL SCIENCE deals with the experience and consequences of war.
- different lenses
By the end of class I want you to consider the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches in helping you gain a better understanding of the war phenomenon
Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” + glorification of war
= against the glorification of war, portraying the sad reality they don’t teach you in school
why do people go to war? -> glorification
- “you’re a man, be a man” (Russia now: to be a proper member of Russian society you need to fight in Ukraine)
- North Korean forces: don’t volunteer to fight in Ukraine, other option is labour camp
- Norman Mailer = anti-war activists = book to explain why US is fighting in Vietnam, set in a hunting trip in Alaska (gonna hunt a grizzly bear, shooting it from a helicopter) = to prove your manhood, you can’t be seen as a weak actor
- volunteer for ideological reasons: Spanish civil war (young leftists joined the republican side to support the cause against the fascists, pro-nationalists volunteering on behalf of the fascists) + Ukraine now (international legion)
volunteers = initial enthusiasm to join, but usually after a couple of years no more volunteers, they have experienced war and their idealistic views have been changed
war representation now vs then
first = battlefields
now = not on the battlefield, but being a civilian (bc modern aviation + chemical weapons)
the front lines of war have shifted in C21
2024 Swedish civil defence manual
instructs civilians what to do if there is a war
- something like this probs unthinkable beginning C21: was not supposed to happen anymore after the cold war
“from the year you turn 16 until the end of the year you turn 70 you are part of Sweden’s total defence and required to serve int he event of war or the threat of war”
- total defence duty also applies for foreigners in Sweden
similar defense manuals in e.g. Taiwan 2023
it is plausible enough that you have to prepare for it
in the NL it is not that big of a deal, but European countries closer to Russia have it a bigger deal
portrayal Vietnam war
soldiers, helicopters
in the American representation in a museum in Washington, you don’t see reference to the Vietnamese at all, except for a bike in the background of the set representing it
depending on where you are there are diff things you focus on
- who we remember vs who we choose not to remember (e.g. Vietnam memorial thing in Washington with ten-thousands of names, but you could add 2 million if you really understand the conflict)
how to ‘live in conflict’ without ‘living in conflict’?
how to understand what it is like to experience war without actually living it?
no ideal method
it is necessary to rely on the experiences of others (writings, interviews, photographs)
but just as there are many diff between conflict A and B, also diff between experiences of diff people living in conflict A and conflict B
also important diff between the way we live now and the way they lived then
it depends on who you look at:
- soldiers vs civilians
- frontline combat fighters vs support personnel
(in the US recruitment for the frontline mainly poor, “dumb” and racial) - aggressors vs defenders
- old vs young
- male vs female
- those who escape vs those who can’t
our reading
- Hiroshima survivors
- Baghdad diary
- US drone operator
- Ukrainian civilians in 2022
ask how the experiences provide diff perspective on the nature of war and armed conflict than the one polsci can provide
Emiko Okada - Hiroshima
describes longer term effects of the experience
- women, girls from Hiroshima couldn’t find husbands for decades after the bombing bc fear Japanese society that they were tainted
quote:
“Hiroshima is known as a ‘city of yakuza.’ Why do you think that is? Thousands of children were orphaned on August 6, 1945. Without parents, these young children had to fend for themselves. They stole to get by. They were taken in by the wrong adults. They were later bought and sold by said adults. Orphans who grew up in Hiroshima harbor a special hatred for grownups.
I was eight when the bomb dropped. My older sister was 12. She left early that morning to work on a tatemono sokai (building demolition) site and never came home. My parents searched for her for months and months. They never found her remains. My parents refused to send an obituary notice until the day that they died, in hopes that she was healthy and alive somewhere, somehow.
I too was affected by the radiation and vomited profusely after the bomb attack.
My hair fell out, my gums bled, and I was too ill to attend school. My grandmother lamented the suffering of her children and grandchildren and prayed. “How cruel, how so very cruel, if only it weren’t for the pika-don (phonetic name for the atomic bomb)…” This was a stock phrase of hers until the day that she died.
The war was caused by the selfish misdeeds of adults. Many children fell victim because of it. Alas, this is still the case today. Us adults must do everything we can to protect the lives and dignity of our children. Children are our greatest blessing.”
Baghdad diary 2006
journalist flies over to Baghdad experience sitting in the back of a cab from the airport to the city, being told of what is happening, wondering how people can keep living
- for years on end every day news about bombing here, bombing there, but you never know what it is really like
“To bring me up to date with the news, Wisam rattles off a long list of recent atrocities: a high-profile kidnapping here, a massacre there, a car bombing someplace else. Long before we reach the city, I’ve heard so many ghastly things that the harrowing flight is already a fading memory. Sensing my sinking spirits, Wisam apologizes for the overdose of grim tidings. “You know how it is in Iraq,” he says with a grin. “All news is bad news.” Then he tells me about the 10 bodies that were discovered in his neighborhood in the past few days, all of them his fellow Shi’ites. The bodies were decapitated, the heads never found. He tells me how, since a suicide bombing in a nearby neighborhood, his wife has been suffering anxiety attacks when she goes shopping. I feel ashamed that a mere hour’s worth of Baghdad’s reality has brought me down; Wisam and his family live it all the time.”
US drone operator
“By the spring of 2011, almost six years after he’d signed on, Senior Airman Brandon Bryant left the Air Force, turning down a $109,000 bonus to keep flying. He was presented with a sort of scorecard covering his squadron’s missions. ‘They gave me a list of achievements’, he says. ‘Enemies killed, enemies captured, stuff like that.’ He called it his diploma. He hadn’t lased the target or pulled the trigger on all of the deaths tallied, but by flying in the missions he felt he had enabled them. ‘The number’, he says, ‘made me sick to my stomach’. Total enemies killed in action: 1,626.”
- shot those who he thought were enemies, god knows how many were innocent civilians
- 3000 airforce strikes in Iraq, Syria, only one innocent died acc to the US (or they were lying through their teeth, probs)
air raid siren, Ukraine 2022
“I remember the first air raid siren very well: it was like a baptism by fire. I was so scared then that I couldn’t speak; it felt like I was having a panic attack. Luckily, a close friend was with me and helped me through it. I couldn’t find a shelter that first night, so I had to go home. The next time the air raid siren sounded, the shelters were open and ready to receive people. If the air raid siren goes off during the day I usually go to the shelter but at night I hide in my corridor. Fortunately, I have acquaintances and friends who go there with me: we live next door to each other. We sit and talk about work and our studies, discuss the war and other current events. We joke a lot and try to support others, especially people with children and pets.
I got used to the sound of the air raid siren within a week. Still, it makes you shudder and start thinking differently. Although I feel a sense of illusory security that we are more or less safe in Chernivtsi, the sound of the siren compels you to take a good look at yourself and your life.”
- now happening all the time, people fleeing to seek shelter, lot don’t make it
imagine you are a researcher trying to understand the experiences of people affected by the war in Ukraine - what 4 people do you interview?
- civilian behind the lines, their experience from being under occupation, being cut off from relatives and sorts
- young vs old
- Russian soldier
- refugees
- generals
- Putin, Zelensky
- …
try to be representative -> need more than 4 people
pictures Gaza, Syria, Ukraine - destroyed cities, burned out buildings
do these photos help you appreciate the reality of contemporary conflict?
- it brings it nearer than statistics, than numbers of casualties or displaced
in what ways do these photos distort the reality of contemporary conflict?
- same destruction, but that’s just part of the conflicts: urban centers
if these photos, or other images similar to it, did not exist, how would your understanding of this conflict change?
war in the smartphone age (Matthew Ford)
how our understanding of and participation in war has changed bc smartphones:
- faster than traditional news channels
- Ukraine creating an IT army: people can participate in the war from home, from their cellphones
‘living in conflict’
- drought and soaring food prices from Ukraine war leave millions in Africa starving
Pete Whalon’s Vietnam War
- volunteered for the US army
- served in Vietnam and re-enlisted for second tour of duty
- role in Vietnam: life guard of US army swimming pools
= there is more to war than you often think about
500.000 troops in Vietnam, of those only 50.000 in combat position (doing the fighting), the rest was logistics/intelligence etc., supporting roles behind the lines
refugees
war in one country has effects on others, e.g. via refugees
but also internal displacement
Iraq
- after 2003: “The U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003, and withdrew in 2011, costing an estimatedhalf a million Iraqistheir lives, causing at least9.2 MILLIONto be DISPLACED, and resulting in more than4.7 millionto experience moderate or severe food insecurity.”
- after 2014: “Since 2014, more than 3 million Iraqis have been displaced within the country and another 260,000 have been forced to flee to neighboring countries. The vast majority - at least 1.5 million people - have sought refuge in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, where one in every four people is either a refugee or an internally displaced person.”
Syrian civil war:
(worst of the refugee crises in our recent memory)
- “After over a decade of conflict,Syriaremains the world’s largest refugee crisis. Since 2011, more than 14 million Syrians have been forced to flee their homes in search of safety. More than 7.4 million Syrians remain internally displaced in their own country where 70 percent of the population is need of humanitarian assistance and 90 percent live below the poverty line. Approximately 5.5 million Syrian refugees live in the five countries neighboring Syria—Türkiye, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Germany is the largest non-neighboring host country with more than 850,000 Syrian refugees. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, hopes recent developments in Syria will eventually bring an end to the largest displacement crisis in the world.”
Refugees: Gaza
- “According to the UN, up to 1.9 million people in Gaza are internally displaced, including people who have been displaced nine or 10 times. Previous estimations were 1.7 million but this was before the operation in Rafah, and since May there have been additional displacements from Rafah and other parts across the Gaza Strip.”
- estimates say 9/10 of people in Gaza have been internally displaced
Jarhead
film about US marines in the first Gulf war 1991 spending time gearing up for fighting, but it is basically over before they arrive
shows the boredom of soldiers during war, during the preparations
now: from emotional prism to polsci prism
- listing which wars have taken place = useful to make sense of the phenomenon, how widespread it is + what type is dominant
- the consequences of war: “any given war will have several kinds of effects. The consequences of war may be permanent or temporary. They may be manifested in the short or long term. They may be direct or indirect. They can also be positive or negative” (Thompson)
most deadly conflict C21
war in the Congo
effects of war national level
also positive effects
technological innovation is accelerated (e.g. nuclear energy, computers, penicillin, rocketry in WW2)
economic/environmental
- damage to farm and other land
- labor (soldiers/civilians killed or disabled)
- capital (infrastructure such as buildings, bridges and machinery)
- war can lead to widespread declines in eco productivity permanently or temporarily
- some countries recover quicker than others
other domestic consequences:
- impact of inter-state war on the likelihood of intra-state conflict within a country (e.g. due to higher taxes, shift away from social programs)
- political leaders who lose are not expected to survive in office
- democratic leaders are more likely to be removed than non-dem
- defeat in war increases prospect of regime change
- but winning does not guarantee success: e.g. Churchill 1945)
- !!! if leaders anticipate removal from office then they have little to gain and much to lose from international conflict
- more willing to continue a war that has little chances of success
demographic consequences:
- can lead to significant increase in mortalitrates, particularly of young adult males
- also civilians: result of bombings and battles and increases in premature death (deteriorating wartime environment)
- declines in marriage/childbirth: although postwar baby boom
sociopolitical:
- women’s rights/chagne in gender roles and expectations (WW1 contribution = important for right to vote)
- with male workers enlisted in the military, women take on roles outside of home: factories etc.
- national health service UK: reward people for the sacrifices they made in the war
economic consequences of e peace
John Meynard Keynes 1920: scissors metaphor
(tried to argue against too strong repair payments requirements Germany)
opening of scissors as gap between losers and winners widens
closing of scissors as international eco chaos created by devastation of losers leads to eco problems for winners so gap narrows
Norman Angell: all nations lose eco power but winners do not lose as much as the losers: gap is expected to continue for a long time
Organski and Kugler = Phoenix factor: eco consequences of war are temporary/relatively quick recovery period (Germany after WW1, Japan after WW2)
- e.g. also SU after WW2
how long after war takes place should one look to find effects? what indicators should we look for? what groups/institutions should we focus on?
WW2 greatest and farthest-reaching consequences of any war in history
- 100 million people served in military forces from more than 30 countries
- battles and other military operations take place on every continent (other than Antarctica) and ocean in the world
- tens of millions of military and civilian casualties
are we still living with the consequences today?
- Hitler analogy used by political leaders to justify war: unless we do this, we go back to 1939
- now: Russia using imagery of nazi’s to justify the war
- change from LoN to UN
- borders Europe shifted
war -> major changes to international systems
often focus on big wars, but small wars also have large consequences
- Seven Weeks War 1866 had big effects bc ‘fundamentally changed the international order by providing the foundation for German hegemony on the continent’
- end WW1: decline of German power + Germany lost colonies + end of German power but Phoenix factor (they bounced back by mid-to-late 1930s)
- WW2: emergence of US superpower, decline British power + soviet power arrives in heart of Europe + Norway and NL no longer playing neutral, join NATO.
concept: Phoenix factor
Organski and Kugler
Phoenix factor: eco consequences of war are temporary / relatively quick recovery period
- Germany after WW1
- Japan after WW2
- SU after WW2
