reading 4 - trends in interstate war Flashcards
(book): intro/definition war
reciprocal use of organized violence by adversaries trying to settle a conflict
- involves strategic activities
war = ‘full-spectrum’ social phenomenon: present beyond the war front and beyond wartime, in and among apparently pacific social, cultural and eco relations (aka it influences virtually all dimensions of human life)
(driver of social, political, eco and technological change)
war hasn’t always been so deadly (only in C20 it joined with disease and famine as ‘life’s great enemies’)
+ 9/10 violent deaths occurred outside wars
war is remarkably resilient, continues to evolve with societies waging it
(book): defining war
most popular approach in IR: act of violence intended to compel our opponent to fulfil our will
approach to parse the master-concept: define interstate war, cyberwar, hybrid war, nuclear war etc.
cultural approach: warfare looks diff depending where/when in history analysts look bc it is an expression of culture, it is socially constructed (+what one side chooses to define as war might not match with the other side)
legal perspective: legal condition which equally permits two or moe hostile groups to carry on a conflict by armed force
- war requires declaration and the parties to acknowledge their joint participation in it
- doesn’t work well with non-state actors + when govs don’t recognize it is war (rather criminal activity)
dominant political approach = Clausewitz: particular type of political activity involving violence (+ war as continuation of politics by other means)(war = rational, national and instrumental)(criticism Clausewitz: not really relevant bc statefocused)
- Bull: organised violence carried on by political units (distinguishes it from murder: it is official and symbolic responsibility) against each other
sociological approach: socially generative form of relations, a full spectrum phenomenon shaping social, cultural, eco and political relations
(book): what war isn’t
war vs organized crime: political goals vs private goals
war vs mass atrocities and genocidal violence: laws of armed conflict all regular militaries and combatants are meant to abide by
- still they often happen in war
- but they can occur outside it (e.g. Uyghurs in China)
blurred boundary war and peace: ‘gray zone’: fuzzy frontier between peace and war = hostile intensions and behavior BUT didn’t cross threshold of warfare (ambiguity: unclear objectives + what role of military will be)
(book): developing the war habit
war at least as old as 8000 BC, but usually against outsiders (+without regular armies), in 1C BC first mention civil war (war among fellow citizens, insiders)(Romans)
professional militaries = small part of wars history
war as habit that most human societies have acquired and become deeply attached to = a social fact or a deeply ingrained cultural practice
war usually out of fear, to prevent a more frightening future
emotional attachment to war: idolization war warriors, definitions heroism and bravery, ideas of protecting the homeland, sacrifice and honor
war vs peace: seen as opposite, but share many similar characteristics. peace as goal of war -> impossible to know war without understanding peace
war depends on human biological and psychological traits: humans biologically predisposed for violence, but biology isn’t destiny: crucial role human psychology and politics
- taboos: legalised restrictions, e.g. killing the defenceless + use of nuclear and chemical weapons
(book): war’s changing character
- revolutions in military affairs (RMAs)
RMAs = emergence of technologies so disruptive that they overtake existing military concepts and capabilities and necessitate a rethinking of how, with what and by whom war is waged
- e.g. longbow, gun-powder, airpower and nuclear weapons
1990 RMA popularized as set of theories by US military: dominance IT systems would lift the fog of war and yield victory
to test if an RMA occurred:
- do military forces look fundamentally diff from the past?
- yes: hi-tech armies with better sensors and harder to kill - are the processes of battle different?
- yes: information processing important -> larger role commercial firms - did the outcomes of war differ?
- yes: US unipolarity -> no adversary could conceive of beating the US in war
most recent debate = if AI and robotics advances constitute a genuine revolution
(book): war’s changing character
- new and old wars
new wars: globalization (esp after 1945) -> distinctive form of organized violence with increasingly blurred lines between organized crime, war and large-scale violations of human rights
diff with old wars (according to Kaldor) =
reflects: erosion state monopoly of legitimate organized violence
goals
- cosmopolitan vs exclusivist identity groups
methods = novel ‘mode of warfare’
- guerilla techniques and counterinsurgency
- decisive engagement is avoided
- territory is controlled through political manipulation
- paramilitary forces + hired thugs -> responsibility hard to trace to politicians + can spread fear and hatred (political manipulation to control territory)
systems of finance
- globalized war econ: decentralized and transnational
- fighting units often self-funding: plunder, black market, or external assistance
criticism Kaldor: many of these trends not new (e.g. atrocities against civilians) + globalization not that recent phenomenon and it is intertwined with war (war is to be interconnected -> war is globalizing force)
(book): the domains of war
warfare expanded into new domains: growing salience of urban spaces, cyberspace and outer space
contemporary urban warfare: smaller forces + bigger cities -> war of local micro-sieges struggling over streets, buildings and districts
cyberwar = potentially lethal, instrumenal and political act of force conducted through malicious code
- cyber attacks usually involve older techniques of sabotage, espionage and subversion -> some see it more as new form of intelligence contest rather than form of war
- others emphasise that for it to be war there needs to be damage to property equivalent to a use of force
- cyber attacks have ben used, but don’t seem to have significantly impacted outcomes
= to the extent that cyberwar exists, its lethality is questionable and its operational effects on the battlefield remain distinctly limited
outer space= important for strategy and geopolitics
- militarized since 1960s: using space-based tech to support military functions and operations
- recent military doctrine explictly framing outer space as war-fighting domain
- Earth-based missiles that can take out targets in outer space
- greater potential for space-to-space weapons (e.g. satellites with jammers)
(book): conclusion
warfare is one of humanity’s most important inventions + for most societies has become a habit -> incredibly resilient
defining war diff: fuzzy boundaries with other concepts
debate about how the character of warfare is changing (continued evolution of warfare)
(the decline of war) first page i thought was summary, but we’ll see
C21 broad literature (diff disciplines) arguing about a decline of war
- wide agreement on the decline of war and other forms of violence, but not on the reasons for the decline
Pinker: decline of war compatible with view of human violent inclinations: bc they are triggered by circumstances that must periodically be discharged + evolution also led to motives that can inhibit violence (self-control, emphathy etc.)
Thayer: decline of war thesis is flawed: positive forces don’t rule outside of the West or even fully inside it + analysis neglects systems of causes of conflict + increasing intense security competition US-China
Levy and Thompson: cultural and ideational explanations for the decline in interstate war underestimate extent to which those factors are endogenous to material and institutional variables = fail to reconize that in some historical contexts those factors have contribted to escalation of warfare
(the decline of war) Pinker - the decline of war
war appears to be in decline:
- since end WW2 great powers (and developed states in general) have rarely faced each other on the battlefield = historically unprecedented
- since end cold war 1989 wars of ALL KINDS have declined throughout the world)
- rate of death from interstate and civil war combined as also declined
is it a statistical fluke? a lucky streak? temporary lull?
-> try to address it with nature of human nature:
- many observers are skeptical that war is in decline bc human nature hasn’t changed -> still have inclinations to violence that causes war
- violence tendency resulting from evolution not disappeared in the 2 gens since WW2
argue that a decline in war is compatible with a nonromantic view of human nature
(the decline of war) Pinker - 4 reasons why decline of war is compatible with a realist conception of human nature
- stranger things have happened: decline in the rate/existence of a particular category of violence is not unusual in human history
- human sacrifice, high homicide rates, slavery, lynching
- so: human nature allows rates of violence to change -> how? - human nature has multiple components: some subsystems may impel us toward violence, but others inhibit us from violence
- facultative (environmentally sensitive rather than hydraulic/homeostatic) components of human nature: not all human responses are homeostatic, many are reactive, opportunistic or facultative (elicited by environmental triggers and cognitive and emotional states)
- human cognition is an open-ended generative system: Reason can just as well cause war as decide to manage the scourge of war + they have done so:
- limits on the gov + infrastructure of commerce (rather than plundering), IOs to resolve disputes
(the decline of war) Pinker - human violence springs from at least 4 motives:
+ we push against it:
- exploitation: violence as the means to an end (e.g. rape, conquest)
- dominance: urge to ascend the pecking order
- revenge: conviction that someone who has committed a moral infraction deserves to be punished
- ideology: belief systems which hold out the prospect of a utopia
we push against it as well:
- self-control
- empathy: ability to feel someone else’s pain
- the moral sense
- reason
whether people commit acts of violence depends on the interplay among these faculties
(the decline of war) - Thayer about Pinker
Thayer: reasons to doubt the decline of war thesis
Pinker: historical processes and good ideas have brought out the “better angels” of human nature, fighting “inner demons” that had pushed it to war previously
Thayer’s main arguments:
- the proposed revolution is partial: it is has a fragile and incomplete existence outside theWest and can be problematic even in the west
- declinists (esp. Pinker) fail to recognize the importance of the international system nd the role of the distribution of power, esp. the value of US power plays in suppressing violence
(the decline of war) - Thayer - the incomplete and uneven distribution of the “better angels”
likelihood of personal violence than it ever has been
BUT in many countries of South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa one still encounters regular brutality
-> how do the stable conditions of the west spread to the rest? what is the transmission mechanism?
- in Pinkner’s argument transmission is important, but how?
better angels do not yet rule the West bc:
- consequences of human evolution in conditions of anarchy imply that the inner demons will never go away and may return when conditions change
- evolution -> behavioral strategies triggered in appropriate settings -> when appropriate settings we see the inner demons (anarchy of IR is hostile) - inner demons are overrepresented among leaders, incl. the ones in the West, bc:
- self-selecting for high-profile jobs
- more ambitious and confident leaders are selected into power
- competitive progress -> focus on self-interest
- power is well known to corrupt
(the decline of war) - Thayer - the importance of the system and distribution of power
Pinker has unit level approach -> doesn’t look at influence system: distribution of power, esp. US’
- acknowledges de liberal leviathan is good for safety and the decline of violence
- then logically internationally it is so too
US power -> US can act as liberal Leviathan ->
- more peaceful world: reduced friction between historical antagonists (esp. France-Germany) + incentives to reduce nuclear proliferation
- ability to spread democracy -> reduces likelihood conflict
- growth of the global econ -> stability and prosperity
- US uses power to promote welfare of people all over the world (humanitarian military missions, de facto world police)
without US power the LIO will end
+ China is rising + not ruled by better angels -> great risk of conflict and intense security competition
3 reasons for despair Sino-American security competition:
- China has border disputes in the South and East China Seas -> risk of escalation
- conflicting grand strategic interests: China risk-accepting
- systemic problems of alliances US, India, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam
-> when we think about the durability of the decline of war, there is reason to be pessimistic : the Long Peace is a product, not a cause in itself
(the decline of war) Levy and Thompson - core
don’t share qualified optimism that all kinds of war will continue to decline
+ question some theoretical explanations for the observed trends in war: utility of a unified theory of violence
think that Pinker gives too much causal weight to ideational and cultural factors + too little to material and institutional factors
(the decline of war) Levy and Thompson) - will the trends continue?
share optimism about low probability of a future great power war
skeptical about continued decline of civil wars and interstate wars outside of the west
“we need to be cautious about extrapolating past trends into a highly uncertain future”
our counterparts in 1912 had even more grounds for optimism about the prospects for peace than we do today
- more sustained decline in great power war and longer period without general war
- great wars that had occurred in the last century were shorter + involved fewer great powers
(the decline of war) Levy and Thompson - a unified theory of violence?
Pinker: inverse relationship between frequency and severity of violence
some have insisted on a unified theory of violence, we are highly skeptical: fear that any theory broad enough to explain violence at the levels of the individual, family, neighborhood, communal group, state and international system would be too general and too indiscriminating to capture variations in violence within each level
- not even clear if diff kinds of warfare can be explained with a single theory
skepticism reinforced by Pinker’s evidence: diff forms of violence bagan to decline at diff times and diff rates
- Pinker focuses that it can’t be a conincidence that most human practices have moved in a less violent direction
(the decline of war) Levy and Thompson - institutions, co-evolution, and multiple trajectories
Pinker: 5 exogenous best explanations for historical change
Leviathan: state with a monopoly on legitimate violence : helps people overcome anarchy incertainties: less incentives for violence and revenge
commerce: creates positive-sum game -> reduces incentive to exploit others
Leviathan and commerce have pacifying effects BUT they are conditional rather than universal : they can also contribute to an increase in frequency/severity of violence + neither is really exogeneous
- dev. state probs contributed to a decline in the frequency of warfare, but also to the increased severity of wars
war has evolved through history, the arc of war has no single driver, there are multiple trajectories that vary over space and time as a function of diff threat environments and ecological conditions
- Western trajectory accelerated significantly in the highly competitive and insecure threat environment of early modern Europe: large army -> centralization -> less vulnerable to internal and external threat + increasing severity and costs of great power war -> over time less wars + since 1914 changing attitudes towards war
- non-Western trajectories: relative absence of competitive security environment -> less state capacity building -> weak states and weak services -> less legitimacy -> more likely to be challenged internally -> MORE LIKELY CIVIL WARS
(inter-state, intra-state and extra-state wars: look at distribution over time) - about empirical data about war trends
conflicting visions of the trends in warfare (end of history vs clash of civlizations (ethno-political, civil wars)
diff visions of trends in warfare bc diff type of conflict studied + diff data sets (own definitions) -> projects incomparable
commonalities:
- timefocus on post-WW2 -> problematic bc no comparable data from other eras
- focus on inter-state conflicts
- lack of strict coding rules or criteria
- some projects base their entire categorization of conflict upon factors that are difficult to evaluate and/or whose significance ma change over time
argues that the COW warsets (correlates of war) offer the most extensive data for the longest period
(inter-state, intra-state and extra-state wars: look at distribution over time) - a comprehensive view
view of warfare can’t be based on examining one type of war alone: both inter-state and intra-state wars are part of the picture
understanding of war has been hampered by failure to examine extra-state (rather than inter-state wars)
- extra-state war = entity not diplomatically recognized (-> e.g. Opium wars, imperialism)
- problems: poor record war deaths
comprehensive understanding war needed bc potential for further increases in civil and extra-state wars
- non-state actors has been (and will continue to be) generated, inter alia, by: the increase in the worldwide arms trade, regions with diminishing resources and economic opportunities, and the increasing power of MNCs (multinational corporations) and their drive to secure resources, markets, and investment opportunit
growing influence of new international actors may lead to diff types and patterns of warfare
(inter-state, intra-state and extra-state wars: look at distribution over time) - classifying modern wars
initial COW project classifications
war = sustained combat between/among military contingents involving substantial casualties (minimum of 1000 battle deaths)
- inter-state wars: fought between 2 or more state members of the inter-state system (recognition + independent + population>500.000)
- civil wars: fought within the metropole of a member state of the system by forces of the regime against an insurgent group
*metropole: areas integrated under the central gov - extra-systemic wars: fought between member of the inter-state system and a territorial and political entity not recognized as a part of that system
*1 needed to have at least 1000 battle deaths, 2 and 3 needed an annual average of 1000 battle deaths
EXPANDED TYPOLOGY
- extra-systemic -> extra-state = war between a territorial state and a nonsovereign entity outside the borders of the state
- civil -> intra-state = between/among two or more groups within the internationally recognized territory of the state
*divided in wars over control territorial state and wars over local issues
*inter-communal: war between non-state actors
(inter-state, intra-state and extra-state wars: look at distribution over time) - trends in modern war
1820-2000
mixed pattern: in some ways we are living through one of the worst decades in modern history
- 1970s decade with the most war onsets of all types + 1960 and 1980 also worse than average
- inter-state wars appear to have declined in the 1990s, but don’t appear to be on a sustained decline = decades with most inter-state war onsets are scattered, INDICATES A CYCLICAL PATTERN rather than a strong declining trend
- recent surge in overall amounts of war = bc civil wars are breaking out at an all-time record rate
- civil wars more and more internationalized (intervention of outside states)
- declining frequency extra-state wars (decolonization -> more system members)
- wars not less deadly (in absolute nrs more deadly, relatively not)
- positive correlation between war and the passage of time
- inverse relation between international war and civil war onsets (more of one -> less of other)
(inter-state, intra-state and extra-state wars: look at distribution over time) - consequences and conclusions
COW war typology provides a broad framework in which a comprehensive analysis of war can be conducted
disinclination to study extra-state wars has distorted ways in which we think about war and world politics (e.g. C19 not long piece)
- also lower priority to study civil wars, but that has been reduced by Vietnam War and race riots in Ameriacn cities in the 1960s, no such boosts from current events have happened for extra-state wars
scientific explanation of modern war thus remains fragmented and incomplete, artifical divsiions of attention have made it diff to focus on overall trends in warfareand interrelations between the types of war
