LIT2: Schake, K. (2017) ‘What Causes War?’ Orbis Volume 61, Issue 4, 2017, pp. 449-462 Flashcards
How does schake analyse the causes of war? Schake 2017
- Political scientists look for patterns and models that can be templates.
- History offers a different perspective, one focused on the particulars of each case. The study of history is, therefore, the study of individual choices.
Two of the most influential assessors of those choices are the ancient Athenian Thucydides and nineteenth century Prussian Carl von Clausewitz
- They are conjoined in this article with brief glances at three important contemporary commentators: Geoffrey Blainey, Barbara Tuchman, and Azar Gat.
What are the five looks of Thucydides, Clausewitz, Blainey, Tuchman and Gat on war? (Schake)
- Thucydides thinks fear, honor, and interest—those fundamental human motivations that persuade us beyond caution—cause wars.
- Clausewitz tries to leach those passions out of the process and distill a calculus of political aims as the cause of war.
- Geoffrey Blainey has a simpler discriminator: states choose war they will win. when they think
- Barbara Tuchman has the simplest explanation of all: human folly.
- Azar Gat believes scarcity drives warfare, and, therefore, prosperity is making it obsolete.
What is Thucydides conclusion to what causes war? Schake 2017
Thucydides famously asserted that the Peloponnesian War was not just a clash of arms but a contest of competing interests, ideologies, and power dynamics
With 3 primary reasons for waging war:
Reasonable fear: This refers to the apprehension or anxiety that one state might have towards the growing power or aggressive actions of another state.
Honor: This could involve the prestige of a state, its leaders, or its people. A state might go to war to defend its honor or to avoid the shame of not responding to a challenge.
Interest: This refers to the pursuit of economic or strategic advantages. A state might go to war to gain territory, resources, or to assert its dominance.
In the History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides conclude that
“the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.”
For this statement, he is often claimed to be the founder of the “realist” school of international relations theory.
But he also makes a compelling case that alliances cause war, since weaker Peloponnese allies pull the strongest powers into conflict over claims of marginal interest.
- He also recognizes the role that key individuals play in driving conflict
He weighs in on the democratic peace theory of international relations as well, showing that democratic Athens was even more susceptible to inducements for war than was martial, oligarchic Sparta.
- Ideology, too, has a place in Thucydides’ rendering of the causes of war, the antipathy between the two models of society featuring prominently.
Thucydides says that states go to war because of fear, honor, and interest.
- However—states always have honor and interest, and usually also fear. Yet, states are not always at war.
Why do they choose some moments to act on the motivations? Thucydides tells the story of a specific set of choices by Athens and Sparta.
Sparta was the reigning hegemon, contented with the status quo distribution of power, the strongest state in the Peloponnese archipelago.
- Athens was an upstart, the inversion of Sparta in nearly every way.
Thucydides introduces the story with small allies complaining to Sparta about the behavior of Athens.
- But seeing that they gain no traction in changing Sparta’s placidity, the Corinthians ramp up the argument, calling into question Sparta’s reliability as an ally and protector.
The Athenians have the easiest part of the argument: preventing consensus. All they have to do is reinforce Sparta’s bias toward inaction.
- But Athens overshoots and cannot resist describing themselves as uniquely virtuous.
In the end it is Athens that compels Sparta to war.
- Sparta does not act to preserve the status quo against a rising power, Athens confronts them.
Thucydides does not have a theory, he has many theories; he does not show an inevitable conflict, he shows all the many ways it might have been avoided and the human frailties that drove bad outcomes.
What is the reason for war according to Clausewitz? Schake 2017
political objectives.
“War is a serious means for a serious object. . . . Each side striving by physical force to compel the other to submit to his will.”
Violence is, thus, a means to a political end
Disarming the enemy by force permits a state to achieve its political end, and is the purpose of warfare
Clausewitz identifies two motives that lead to war:
1. Antipathy
- Instinctive bias, people are always angry.
2. Hostile intention
- One state has something, usually territory, coveted by another that will seek to take it.
Thucydides, likewise, acknowledges both these motives: Athens and Sparta look at each other’s societies with suspicion, and they have specific grievances to redress.
Clausewitz approaches the subject of warfare almost as a logic problem.
- Victory can only be achieved when you put the enemy in a situation more unpleasant than the sacrifice its willing to make. And the larger the sacrifice one seeks to compel from an enemy, the greater the effort.
- Each side uses laws of probability when deciding on what to do.
Clausewitz seeks to nail down general principles, such as:
- The only justification for delay is waiting for a more favorable moment.
- The form of defense is stronger than that of offense.
He terms warfare’s fundamental elements to be “ a wonderful trinity”
1. Violence
2. Chance
3. Politics
Perhaps Clausewitz’s greatest contribution, at least for civilian strategists, is the richness of his appreciation for how much can go wrong in war.
- This he terms the “ fog of uncertainty” in war.
While more bloodlessly delineated than Thucydides, the two theorists’ views are fundamentally compatible
- Both consider war a tool of the state to attain high political purposes.
Where Thucydides and Clausewitz differ is over the ability of political and military leaders to leech the emotion out of their decisions
What is Blainey’s cause of war? Schake 2017
Another important and recent variant on what causes war comes from Geoffrey Blainey.
- He posits that the single, simple way to understand when a state will elect to go to war is that it believes it can win. It has confidence that it can attain its political objectives by force.
So like Clausewitz, Blainey believes political purpose is the root, violence the means of attainment.
- Also like Clausewitz, Blainey ascribes careful evaluation to the leaders who choose war; they do not stumble into a chasm, they make prudential choices.
A conclusive end to the previous war preserves peace because it leaves no doubt as to the distribution of power, and therefore what weak states will need to accept from strong states in order to prevent war.
- However, wars also end by negotiation.
“Wars end when nations agree that war is an unsatisfactory instrument for solving their dispute; wars begin when nations agree that peaceful diplomacy is an unsatisfactory instrument for solving their dispute. Agreement is the essence of the transition from peace to war and from war to peace”
What is Tuchman’s cause of war? Schake 2017
Barbara Tuchman considers the fundamental cause of war to be the pursuit of policy contrary to selfinterest.
- It is the product of tyranny, excessive ambition, incompetence or decadence.
States don’t rationally choose political contests by violence, they are thrust upon states.
She is, thus, an outlier to Thucydides, Clausewitz, Blainey, and Gat. For them, war is purposeful, a way to attain worthy objectives. For her, it is a mistake, and cannot have a rational basis.
The noble, in her estimation, are those leaders who understand that war is misgovernment, and “all misgovernment is contrary to self-interest in the long run.”
When reason prevails, war is never chosen.
What is Azar Gat’s reason for war? Schake 2017
Azar Gat makes the most sweeping claim of any of these theorists, arguing in War in Human Civilization that war is a biological and social reaction to material scarcity.
- War is not just the human condition, it is the natural state of all life forms.
What is different for Gat about humans and warfare from the animal kingdom is that political entities emerge from the practice of war.
- Whereas many political scientists argue the formation of states causes war, Gat concludes that war created the state.
“That ‘war’ is customarily defined as large-scale organized violence is merely a reflection of the fact that human societies have become large and organized.”
By organizing into political entities, humans gain the scale of effort to produce prosperity, which reduces the scarcity causing them to choose warfare.
This means that the death toll of human fighting will actually decrease under the state. The conveyor belt from war to peace is prosperity
Like Clausewitz, Gat considers warfare a rational choice. It is the continuation of natural motivations by violent strategies. Like Blainey, Gat is unsentimental about the nature of the state. It is prosperity rather than democracy that causes peace.
Is one view on the causation of war true? (Schake 2017)
In thinking about war, we are confronted not only with the question of why it happens, but also why it does not happen.
Thucydides, Clausewitz, Blainey, Tuchman, and Gat all tell history with an argument —they have a view on what causes wars.
And as Thucydides teaches us, all their views can be simultaneously true.
