Midterm Flashcards
Why people go to war?
Fear, honor and interest
What was the 30 years war?
A series of declared and undeclared wars between Catholics and Protestants. A key moment in development of state system for rules of war. 4 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died. Ended in 1648 with the treaty of Westphalia.
Significance of Congress of Vienna
Balance of power to prevent another Napoleon. German unification. The birth of international relations.
Significance of WW1
1914-1945 Introduction of total war, possible by new technologies. Nationalism never experienced on this scale. Mass killings, mass participation to save world from German beast. Trench fighting for hours. 37 million deaths civilians and military.
WW2 significance?
The battle of ideologies, no longer about territory and interests. Nazis and totalitarian a result of the upheaval. The dawn of the nuclear age.
Cold War significance?
50 year ideological confrontation, kept in check by the possibility of nuclear war between the Soviet empire and the United States.
Origins of the Just War tradition?
Early Christian thought. St Augustine “ The City of God”
Self Defense
Punishment of the Wicked
Righting of a wrong
Jus ad bellum
Whether the recourse to war is just.
Jus in Bello
Whether the conduct of the combatants in war is just.
Just war tenets
Legitimate authority Last resort Just cause Right intention Chance of success Proportionality
Just war theory
Predicate on a belief in sanctity of life and that war is a tragedy.
Legitimate authority
No private wars
Must be declared
By the sovereign
Just cause
Self defense Protection of the innocent Righting serious harm Regaining something taken, within limits Pride, honor and Revenge fails this test.
Right intention
You cannot do the right thing for the wrong reason.
Chance of success
No romantic Suicide mission
No noble hopeless cause
Crusades
Must be respectful of the lives that could be lost
Proportionality
Is the response proportional to the offense? Are the means being used appropriate to the goals sought?
Last resort
All other options must be exhausted for redress for:
Diplomacy
Law
Threats
Does not require always taking the first punch
Must show no alternative
Does just war still matter?
In the end states and thinkers still do care about the rules of war. Yes still matters because nuclear weapons, germs rogue states are existential threats to our existence
Massive retaliation (1954)
To retaliate instantly at time and place of our own choosing.
Flexible response
Recognizing that massive retaliation wasn’t credible.
Envisions stages of escalation: from conventional war, to limited nuclear strikes to all war.
Deliberate escalation
Meant to give president other options
Mutual assured destruction
A recognition that both side now had enough weapons to destroy each other completely.
Mutual suicide pact.
No defenses
No attempt to defend
Ambiguity
Calculated ambiguity
Attempt to adapt from the nuclear deterrent to non- nuclear threats
Same strategies
Lower numbers
The stability-instability paradox
An international relation theory that says that the but nuclear weapons made the world more stable, but also more unstable due to the constant fear of instant war.
Horizontal proliferation
The spread of WMD to nations that previously did not have them.
Vertical proliferation
Increase in amount of WMD in countries who already have these type of weapons.
Asymmetrical deterrence
Possibility for small actors to influence the international system in a way never seen before in history. One nuclear bomb will ruin your day.
What effect did the end of the Cold War on the ability to keep international order?
The end of bipolar rigidity, chaos. Many conflicts across the world between states.
The problem with with client states?
Arming clients and rebels, lots of weapons left behind. The ubiquitous AK-47. US and Soviets would not allow clients states to fail.
The superpower vacuum after 1998?
Americans turns inward
It’s the economy stupid.
Moscow no longer interested or capable of intervention withdraws from Afghanistan.
Rwanda crisis?
Former Belgian colony Two tribes in conflict: The Hutu and Tutsi President killer in airplane crash Used as pretext to eliminate Tutsi Genocide 1 million dead Tutsi 18 American Rangers dead
Yugoslavia crisis? In Srebenica 1995
Cobbled after WW2 out of six Slavic regions Serbia Bosnia Slovenia Croatia Macedonia Montenegro Mass killing of 8000 Bosnia Muslims and mass rapes UN overrun by Bosnian Serbs UN humiliated
Kosovo 1999?
19 nations agree to attack Serbian government with air strike.
Miloseviic forced out from office
Mladic convicted to life in prison
The USA went from no interventions to interventions all the time!
Remnants of Cold War?
Clients and Allie’s Rigid bipolarity gone overnight Power vacuums Leftover weapons Unresolved disputes Cold War fatigue
How did humanitarian interventions come to be seen as acceptable?
The first two tragedies during the 1990s set the tone, first we did not intervene. Kofi Ann spoke at UN Security Council and said, we need to do more. From Kosovo on, we intervened and intervened often.
Moral Equality of soldiers
Honor and chivalry play only a small part in combat today
War is still a rule governed activity
What is war?
A legal condition which equally permits two or more groups to carry out conflict by armed force.
Walzer main argument
Preventive commercial wars , wars of expansion, conquest, religious crusades, revolutionary wars and military interventions all are barred and banned absolutely
Aggression justifies what?
A war of self defense by victim
A war of law enforcement by victim and other members of international society
Nothing but aggression can justify war
