reading 3 - causes of war Flashcards
(war - definition)
- large-scale organized violence between political organizations
- continuation of politics by other means (Clausewitz)
war involves both decisionmaking by a political organization and strategic interaction between adversarial political organizations
Levy article conclusion
no single monocausal theory can provide an adequate explanation for war (diff levels of analysis necessary to understand)
+ multiple paths to war
+ increasing methodological pluralism
Levy - levels of analysis
Waltz 3 images of war -> Singer named them the levels of analysis
- individual = human nature + individual politicians
- nation-state = political system (authoritarian/democratic), eco structure, policymaking process, role public opinion, interest groups, nationalism etc.
- international system = anarchy, distribution of power, patterns of alliances
= standard typology, Levy adds a separate decision-making level with distinct individual and organizational levels + a dyadic/interactional level
we can use causal variables at one level to explain outcomes at another, but need to be careful to specify theoretical connections
Levy - system-level theories
realist theories = assume that sovereign states act rationally to advance their security, power and wealth in an anarchic international system
anarchy -> insecurity and competition -> focus on short-term security needs, worst case outcomes and relative position
war can be both deliberate and inadvertent (security dilemma -> conflict spiral driven by fear and uncertainty)
balance of power theory = states build arms and alliances to prevent or balance hegemony
- high concentrations of power -> counter-hegemonic coalitions and hegemonic wars = WW1, WW2, French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
- effects of bipolarity and multipolarity less clear + inconclusive
power transition theory: hegemony is common and conducive to peace: diff growth rates lead to rise and fall of dominant states, probability of war peaks when leader is overtaken by rising power
- preventative logic: leading state may provoke war when it is still the strongesst
- power transition theorists generally argue that rising power initiates war prior to power transition to accelerate transition (which goes against its incentives so it will win the war)
!!! realist theories can explain only a limited amount of variance of war and peace -> shift of focus to dyadic-level theories
Levy - dyadic-level theories
can explain more variation in war and peace than system level theories can
democratic states rarely go to war with each other + most wars are between contiguous states + history important for likelihood war
BARGAINING MODEL OF WAR
war as inefficient means to resolve conflicts of interests bc it destroys resources -> theory of war needs to explain why there is no negotiated settlement
Fearson: 3 sets of conditions under which rational unitary actors can end up in war
- private information and incentives to misrepresent that information
- commitment problems
- indivisible issues
Levy - bargaining model of war - 3 conditions - private information and incentives to misrepresent that information
war when = disagreements about relative power and hence about the likely outcome of war (when both know what the outcome would be, they would negotiate based on that)
sharing info can narrow/eliminate gap in expectations but might alert adversary to weaknesses/strengths and give it opportunity to compensate
Levy - bargaining model of war - 3 conditions - commitment problem
shifting distribution of power between states -> diff to reach settlement that is mutually preferred to war
- rising state will want to negotiate and settle bc it can’t win now and will have stronger position later
- state in relative decline will want to freeze the status quo
commitment problem = rising state can promise to honor the present settlement, but how credible is it when its powers have increased?
Levy - bargaining model of war - 3 conditions - indivisible issues
mutually acceptable settlement requires a division of goods proportionate to the likely outcome of the war
requires in principle that the issues in dispute be infinitely divisible (e.g. issues of principle)(or that the issue is linked to another issue)(or if there is a side payment)
Levy - state and societal-level theories - democratic peace
= explain war as product of causal factors internal to states
the democratic peace
democracies rarely ever go to war with each other = consensus, why? no agreement:
- democratic culture and norms-> averse of war
- norms of political competition and peaceful resolution of disputes extend to other democracies but not non-democracies bc they fear being exploited by non-dem
- “institutional constraints model” = electoral accountability and dispersion of power -> unilateral military action, requires support
but why do dems fight imperial wars? and wars against non-immediate threats?
- shared identity among democracies (but then why do dems occasionally fight each other)
- diversionary theory of war: rally around the flag (mixed empirical results)
logical + empirical limitations democratic norms and institutional models -> Bueno de Mesquita new institutional explanation: goal of political leaders is political survival
- survival in office more dependent on outcome war than that of authoritarian leaders -> only go to war when they know they win
- more likely to spend more during war than autocratic leaders (need to buy support) -> democracies know it is expensive for both, both want to negotiate
Schultz’ institutional explanation: organized political opposition doesn’t share gov incentives to bluff about military capabilities and resolve a crisis + transparency democratic process -> behavior of opposition sends credible signal to adversary of the gov’s likely resolve in a crisis
- if opposition doesn’t support gov (think it is bluff or lacks capacities or thinks war will be unpopular) -> gov can’t stand firm in crisis -> adversary more bold
- if opposition supports gov, leaders freer to initiate a dispute -> adversary more cautious
Levy - state and societal-level theories - capitalist peace
= explain war as product of causal factors internal to states
trade/eco interdependence promotes peace bc eco opportunity costs of war
(empirically some find a positive relation between trade and war + some scholars are cautious -> need to focus on conditions under which eco interdependence promotes peace)
causal factors at domestic level reinforce trade-promotes-peace proposition:
- liberals: trade -> prosperity -> removes domestic conditions conducive to war
- liberals: eco stagnation -> diversionary use of force to solidify support + pressure for protectionism (can lead to retaliation and conflict spiral)
- trade -> prosperity -> democracy -> peace
criticism:
- realism = eco opportunity costs war small relative to national security interests + eco interdependence is asymmetrical (-> coercion -> more likely conflict)
- rationalists: state-level can’t explain dyadic outcome of peace or war + criticize neglect of theory of bargaining
- liberal scholars misspecified relationship trade and peace: maybe peace->trade rather than vice versa OR maybe the relation is spurious (there is a commonality of interests)
individual-level theories
traces decisions for war/peace to belief systems, psychological processes, personalities and emotional states of key decision-makers
- diff in these -> diff conceptions of national interests, strategies, time frame, etc. -> will act diff in same situation
- hard to generalize to all wars (better for explaining individual wars)
prospect theory: people are sensitive to changess in assets than to levels in assets + frame choice around a reference point
- more weight to loss than gain -> risk averse in choices among gains + take big risks to avoid losses
- focus on reference dependence, loss aversion and variable risk propensities
- picking a reference point is subjective (criticism to this theory is lack of focus on how the reference point is chosen), often the status quo + people renormalize reference points more quickly after gains than after losses
prospect theory propositions -> predictions about war/peace
- states take more risks to defend than to acquire territory/reputation/support
- leaders are punished more for losses than for failing to make gains
- after suffering loss, leaders tend to take risks to make up for it (+ adversary renormalizes reference point and takes risks to defend new normal) -> both sides take disproportionate risks
- also with failing military interventions - attempts to deter adversary from making gains more suc6ful than attempts to deter it from recovering losses
- states can more easily cooperate over the distribution of gains than losses
!!logically makes sense, empirically hard to test/measure (e.g. reputation, power, security, identity) + problems in IR often uncertain probabilities (theory is less developed there)
Howard on WW1
proliferation literature on wars after WW1
prior WW1 = war seen as acceptable/inevitable/desirable way to settle international differences
causes Great War in essence not more complex/profound than previous European Wars (attitude towards war was not diff than before)
cause: German fear that disintegration Habsburg Empire would result in enhancement Russian power (which was already growing) + British fear that Germany would take European hegemony
-> was there really anything diff about 1914 (Great War not necessarily greater/diff/complexer causes)
Howard on scholarship about causes of war
since C18 blamed on stupidity/self-interest of governing elites = assumes that if sensible men were in control there would be no war
C20: alternative explanations: immaturities in social knowledge and control + Social Darwinian acceptance inevitability of struggle
liberal intellectuals: war as aberration from the norm, a mistake or crime (this idea arose in Britain and the US + led to misunderstandings with countries that supposedly “caused” WW1 after WW1, that did not speak up to say that they were merely acting as historically was always done)
war before C18 a function of the mores (a way of life that only needed little justification), C18 it became “staatspolitik” (rederick the Great) + associated with power
Howard on war and the state + war as accident
war is only a particular kind of conflict between a specific social group: sovereign states
no sovereign states -> no wars, but probs also no peace (bc states monopolize violence and legitimize authority -> eliminates conflict within borders)
initiation of war is almost by definition deliberate, not accidental, war does not begin by mistake and continued with no political purpose
Howard - interstate conflict vs other forms of social rivalry
states fight in order to acquire/enhance/preserve capacity to function as independent actors in the international system at all (not over specific issues that can be resolved peacefully)
-> war not from irrationality and emotions (natural sciences) but from rationality: they analyse how events all over the world will impact the state
- a stillborn prince, a coup/assassination/insurrection in a far country, are all analysed closely
in general war is not because of ideology or aggression, but because of reason (states (believe to) discern dangers before they become immediate)
Germany 1914 + British 1939 : people felt justified in going to war to maintain their power, to do so while it was still possible (before isolation/impotence)
“what made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear this caused in Sparta” (Thucydides)
!power is no longer only control of territory, since C17 also effectiveness of exploiting resources of the territory, C19 power measured in growth of populations/communications/weapon systems -> focus on arms race
mutual perception of threat before 1914 -> Great War
Howard on arms races
= continuing and open-ended attempts to match power for power
= means of achieving stable/favorable power balances (like dynastic marriages were)
!to imply they in themselves are causes of war is naive/mistaken view: causes of war are rooted in perceptions of growth of hostile power and fear of demise
arms races can no more be isolated than wars themselves from the political circumstances that give rise to them + take on many diff forms depending on circumstances
no causes for fear or rivalry -> arm races not necessarily destabilizing (merely keeping armory up to date, to maintain the status quo)
*arms races can also be started to change the status quo (e.g. beginning C19 German naval challenge to Britain, Germany wanted to end British naval hegemonic position, Britain was alarmed not by the means but by the intention), unwillingness to acquiesce with the transformation of the power balance = one of the main causes of the Great War
(German armament before WW2 not directly intended war, it was aimed to establish power, to obtain a free hand on the international scene, once again the British responded bc they did not want to change the balance of power)
(SU in the cold war: needs to arm not to engage in war, but to show intent to remain/be a global power)
problem = what is seen by one state as breaking of an alien hegemony, establishing an equal status is seen by the incumbent powers as striving for development of an alternative hegemony (not necessarily wrong)
arms race then becomes almost a necessary surrogate for war, test of strength and will
Howard on war now/then
we would be blind if we didn’t recognize that causes that produced wars in the past are operating in our own day as powerfully as at any time in history
but time has changed since Thucydides, even since 1914: war no longer seen as normal/acceptable
- if revulsion is not evenly spread, societies that see war as acceptable will come to dominate
Howard conclusion
wars begin with conscious and reasoned decisions based on calculation, made by both parties, that they can achieve more by going to war than by remaining at peace
-> abolition of nuclear weapons not necessarily a blessing: makes it easier for statesmen to regard war as feasible instrument of state policy
why did the US invade Iraq?
hegemony school vs security school (core summary)
CORE CLAIM ARTICLE = scholarship on the causes of the Iraq War can be usufully organized into security and hegemony schools
hegemony school probs has more adherents among scholars
Bush administration decided to invade Iraq…
security school: to safeguard the US against the conjoined threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and links to terrorist groups
- desire for security (to protect against future terrorist attacks)
hegemony school: to preserve and extend US hegemony including the spread of liberal democratic ideals
- pursuit of primacy
- Bush admin used 9/11 and threat of weapons of mass destruction as a pretext to justify a war with diff motivations
= core divide in scholarship
but it could be a bit of both (false dichotomy)
!both schools don’t ignore the other, they differ in opinion on what was more important, what was the primary reason
more attention to global and cultural factors would be useful to advance the field
(what caused the Iraq war?)
security school
war to safeguard against future threat = preventive wars to remove a threat
Iraq War as contingent
- key scholars: Leffer, Jervis, Bozo, Debs, Daalder, Hahn, Lindsay Tunc, Yetiv
- largely trusted what policymakers say their motives were until clear contradictory evidence can be found -> overlap with officials’ memoirs
- pressured post-9/11 environment as critical context: it changed US foreign policy: diff risk calculus (more fearful)
*Iraq specifically bc seen as “nexus” of threat of WMD, threatening neighbours and terrorism (truly believed the threat was real and growing) - Iraq war as understandable mistake (9/11 fear + belief Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction) -> don’t call for revision post-Iraq US-foreign policy
- often more sympathetic view of the Bush admin Iraq policy (focus on fear, they tried to do the right thing, no reason to believe Saddam didn’t have active WMD programs)
argues war was not primarily to extend US hegemony or liberal values: getting rid of relatively minor rival does not change global balance of power + imbalance and idealism existed before 9/11, attack was the decisive variable to reevaluate national security
(what caused the Iraq war?)
hegemony school
war to preserve or extent hegemony
Iraq War as predetermined
!school is split on if the US sought realist (Iraq as opportunity to display power, to prevent others from attempting to challenge the US) or liberal (want to spread democracy and capitalism = revisionist grand strategy) forms of hegemony
- scholars: Butt, Walt, Bacevich, Porter, Pillar, Ikenberry, Harvey, Mearsheimer, Record
- tends towards realist IR school (not exclusively)
- don’t trust testimonies of policymakers that have incentive to deny ideological/delusional aspects of actions
- focus on wider historical contexts (primacist policy views): continuity in pursuing primacy before and post 9/11
- war bc pursuit global primacy -> to avoid similar disasters the grand strategy needs to be abandoned (i.e. US-foreign policy change)
- some Bush admin officials have acknowledged the importance of larger ideologic or hegemonic designs
see security rationales as incomplete explanations, security largely as pretext to justify the war
(what caused the Iraq war?)
(Bush Doctrine)
liberal hegemony argument
Bush Doctrine = unilateral right to change regimes of rival states through preventative war
- liberal hegemony argument: Bush admin escalated the pursuit of liberal hegemony and asserted the Bush Doctrine
- security argument: Bush Doctrine as response to new category of threat
- realist hegemony argument: Bush Doctrine as blueprint to preserve US primacy
(what caused the Iraq war?)
synthesizing the security and hegemony schools
there is primary source evidence to support both interpretations
point of agreement both = end of cold war constitutes an essential precondition for the Iraq war: importance unipolarity (allows dreams of hegemony)
examine the national security urgency of post-9/11 moment without ignoring the historical context of US hegemony and idealism
- 1990s “regime change consensus” on Iraw: predisposed US foreign policy establishment to support Saddam’s ouster + containment as failing alternative policy
- agreement about US hegemony fed the regime change consensus + made the war seem logical to US elites
- 9/11 changed US willingness to tolerate threats + provided more leeway to leaders to pursue risky strategies
one way to synthesize = hegemony school helps explain why Iraq (since e.g. North Korea had more advanced WMD programs, Iraq was an opportunity rather than threat) + security school why now (US invasion and occupation of Iraq virtually inconceivable without 9/11)
relationship between 1990-1 Gulf War and 2003 Iraq War remains understudied (messy ending -> pattern of conflict US and Iraq before 9/11)
(what caused the Iraq war?)
what was “coercive diplomacy” all about?
fall 2002 Bush admin took diplomatic track on Iraq: called for Iraq to readmit weapons inspections or face being overthrown at the UN + sought congressional authorization to use force against Iraq + build-up US troops in the region put credible threat of force behind this final attempt at diplomacy = coercive diplomacy
what was the purpose of coercive diplomacy?
- genuine attempt to peacefully disarm Iraq?
- Leffler: final attempt to find out if disarmament could be achieved without regime change
- Bush prioritized disarmament by whatever means, not regime change for ulterior reasons
- security school
- matches with US leaders’ description of own actions
- decision to invade Iraq only in early 2003 - way of gaining legitimacy and allied and domestic political support for predetermined policy of regime change?
- decision to invade Iraq (or at least to bring down Saddam Hussein) earlier than 2003
- almost no debate in Bush admin if invasion was sound idea -> suggests it was already decided
- Bush had already made the case earlier that containment could not handle the “nexus” threat: so seeking containment through coercive diplomacy makes no sense
- Bush admin doubtful of efficacy of inspections, set high bar so that failure was virtually predetermined
- hegemony school
= under-examined aspect of the Iraq war, skipping it leads to deterministic explanations, leaves little room for contingency
more analysis of the State Departments role int he lead-up to war would be useful, but new documentary evidence will not fully resolve disagreements bc scholars look at it through diff lenses -> discrepancies between scholars using the same docs (shows importance interpretative frameworks)
(what caused the Iraq war?)
How important where the neoconservatives/neocons?
security school tends to downplay neocons, hegemony usually argues for their importance
neocons = loose intellectual movement with origins in the 1960s third-wave neoconservatism = nationalistic movement peaking in the 90s-00s seeking to promote US primacy, national greatness and spreading democracy
- significant nr of neocons worked in high positions of the Bush admin (e.g. Wolfowitz)
neocons called for regime change in public discourse
- some argue they captured the hear and mind of Bush (admin)
- some argue that they were irrelevant or of secondary importance (neither Bush nor the top decisionmakers were neocon)
*argue that neocon presence in the admin may have pushed for regime change, but was not vital for making the war happen - many scholars esp in the liberal hegemony school argue that neocons were essential in causing the war (Flibbert: neocons closed the conceptual gap between Iraq and terrorism)
- journalistic accounts of the war often stress the role of neocons in clearing the path to war: show neocon influence around the admin
-> was ideology a fundamental motivator of the decision to invade?
(what caused the Iraq war?)
Iraq war scholarship and US foreign policy
majority scholars in both security and hegemony schools agree that Iraq was a mistake, they disagree on its consequences for US foreign policy
security-centric explanations
- less condemning portrayal of the Bush admin and foreign policy (empathy defense)
- Bush faced unprecedented security threat after 9/11 and launched a mistaken war riddled with errors in intelligence, planning and execution
- no need to rethink position of global leadership, but do eschew ambitious nation-building and democratization projects = just need to avoid obvious mistakes
- US leaders seem to agree with this view (Obama, Trump, Biden)
hegemony school
- war signals bankruptcy of the overly ambitious and hyper-interventionist grand strategy of primacy: if US doesn’t rethink its global role, it will rush headlong into more unnecessary conflicts
- war demonstrates myopia and conformism of the bipartisan policy establishment and its addiction to an expansive global mission (focused on a hegemonic role)
