War and its Causes Flashcards
What are the three types of military conflicts between countries?
1) Interstate Wars
2) Militarised interstate disputes (MID) - military coercion
3) Extra state wars
What are the trends in international military conflicts?
1) Interstate wars - trend towards relative peacefulness. Does war continue to be a persistent feature of international politics.
2) MIDs: General decreases in national initiations
3) Extra state wars - prominent element of world conflict.
Eg US and allied invasion of Afghanistan
What can conflicts of interests revolve around?
1) Economic resources eg Arab-Israeli Wars
2) Policy disagreements eg Israel’s destruction of Syria’s nuclear reactor (MID)
3) Political regimes: ethnic/ religious identity or territory
4)
How can most states resolve conflicts of interest?
Diplomacy => hence, presence of conflict of interest cannot by itself explain onset of war.
What does the individual level of analysis propose?
- Leaders and other policy makers are actors who ultimately make the decision for or against war.
What are the three main factors that might influence leaders’ decisions to go to war?
(Individual Level)
1) Misperception, stress and ‘motivated biases’
2) Social psychology of small groups: groupthink
3) Personality trait of leaders; over optimism
What does the state level of analysis propose?
Domestic institutions and policy processes within countries shape the way leaders deal with international problems.
What are the four main proponents of the state level analysis of war?
1) Domestic Economic Systems and War (Capitalist peace)
2) Domestic political institutions and governmental processes:
- Institutional Constraints
- Normative Constraints
3) Nationalism and War
4) Societal gender relations and international conflict
What are the causes of war on an international level?
1) Anarchy - as permissive
2) Anarchy - as a propellant:
- Overstating their resolve and capabilities
- Commitment
