Lecture 3: the causes of war Flashcards
What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear this caused in Sparta.” — What key concepts does this illustrate?
Preventive War — Sparta feared Athens’ rising power and chose to act before Athens became too strong.
Balance of Power — Sparta viewed Athens’ growing influence as a threat to the stability of power, prompting conflict to maintain equilibrium.
What are the main ideas regarding war and peace?
Perpetual peace is linked to death (a “graveyard”), and “only peace is the peace of the dead.”
Alcohol (implied by the innkeeper) is suggested as a temporary escape.
Satirical inscription targets:
Men in general
Heads of state (who crave war)
Philosophers (who idealize perpetual peace).
Is the search for perpetual peace a fantasy?
Peace should be thought of as:
Absence of war (temporary, with limitations).
Perpetual peace (guaranteed by higher authority).
Our view of peace relates to how we understand the causes of war.
Proximate cause of WW2
Anarchy
How should political scientists analyze the causes of war?
Multiple contributing factors: There isn’t just one cause of war; it’s influenced by various factors.
Causation over time: Distinguish between factors that cause war at any time vs. at a specific moment.
Underlying vs immediate causes:
Underlying: Long-term structural factors (e.g., historical grievances, military build-ups).
Immediate: Specific events or actions that trigger war (e.g., assassination, diplomatic failure).
Scope conditions: Some causes may only apply in certain contexts (e.g., autocracies vs. democracies).
Pathway to war: Can we describe a clear, plausible sequence of events that leads to war?
Compare alternative explanations: Evaluate and compare different theories to understand the true causes of war.
anarchy as a cause of war against
- International society is government by norms, agreements, and rules that mitigate conflict between states
- International anarchy as cause does not account for the importance of other causes such as human nature
- Does not provide a good explanation for civil wars – which seem to result from issues of identity, greed, corruption, domestic grievances, etc.
Historians vs Political Scientists
Historians
Treat every war as unique, with unique causes
No interest in generalizations
Political Scientists
Shift attention from particular wars to the general phenomenon
Look for patterns/similarities between the causes of different wars
The difficulty of studying wars
there are just too many types of wars
Anarchy as the Cause for
- Wars begin because there is no authority to stop them
- Unlike domestic societies in which most governments have a monopoly of force
- Realist view: the structure of power in international relations determines the opportunities for the use of force
- Rising powers and declining powers often find themselves at war (Power Transition Theory/Thucydides Trap)
Waltz
3 Levels of Analysis or Images
Individual (minds of men)
State (internal structure – e.g. liberal democracy vs autocratic)
International System (anarchy)
Stability-Instability Paradox
The Stability-Instability Paradox suggests that while nuclear weapons may create a high level of stability at the strategic level (by deterring full-scale war between nuclear-armed states), they can simultaneously increase instability at the lower, conventional levels (by encouraging smaller, non-nuclear conflicts).
Why the decision to invade Iraq in 2003?
Official Reasons
* WMD/Preventive War
* Post-1991 revelations
* Terrorism link
Oil counterfactual – necessary condition
Three explanations: Invasion of Ukraine
- Putin’s worldview and imperial ambitions
- Regime security considerations
- Strategic response to Ukraine’s growing geopolitical alignment with the West
- Spoiler Alert: all three explanations suffer from analytical and evidentiary problems
1.Putin’s worldview and imperial ambitions
Putin’s “imperial fantasies, historical nostalgia, and resentment towards the West.”
Putin is “driven by a sense of a historic mission to rectify perceived injustices and to regather lost Russian lands.”
“Putin seems to have succumbed to his ego-driven obsession with restoring Russia’s status as a great power with its own clearly defined sphere of influence.”
“Putin has had expansionist designs from his first days in office.”
- Regime Preservation
Driven by domestic political factors and considerations
‘Democracy contagion’’: Kremlin was concerned that a democratizing Ukraine could serve as an inspiration for Russians to rise up against the Putin regime
attempt to deflect the Russian population’s attention away from growing internal problems
- Balancing the West
Response to perceived aggressive actions by the West, specifically prospect of entry of Ukraine into NATO
Any other great power when confronted with the same circumstances would have acted in the same or a similar manner
Russia ostensibly took similar action in Georgia in 2008 to derail NATO membership
