war and world politics

Question 1

Main question:

Answer 1

Why do states go to war?
- foundational question of IR (critical theories criticize that this is the main question)

Question 2

Relation amount of deaths (relatively) and the international system

Answer 2

The bigger the amount of deaths, the higher the changes/developments in the international system

Question 3

Most violent war/conflict 2022

Answer 3

Ethiopian civil war
*inter-state wars are seen as more disruptive, but aren’t always/often

Question 4

War in Ukraine is on track to be among modern history’s bloodiest

Answer 4

looks like it will be a long, violent war
something that we haven’t seen lately
*it has a long build up

Question 5

decline in casualties example contradiction

Answer 5

proxy war: Iran, Iraq
long time, many casualties

Question 6

proxy war

Answer 6

war between state and/or non-state actors, in which there are also actors that don’t have a direct involvement/interest in the main conflict

outside influence

Question 7

war is the most destructive form of human behavior

Answer 7

war kills
war destroys
war disrupts
war traumatizes (much longer than the actual war)

Question 8

in what way does war create rather than disrupt
5

Answer 8

• war leads to the birth and evolution of states
• war leads to the emergence of international norms and institutions (conflict resolution, prevention, reconstruction etc.)
  e.g. Westphalian sovereignty, liberal international order
• war encourages cooperation (prevent another war, alliances promote cooperation after the war)
• war drives economic growth (economies have to be transformed to support the war efforts, after the war there is economic growth after years of regression)
• war can also be ‘‘just’’ (just war doctrine/interpretation: wars can be justified in protecting national security interests or protection of civilians and norms)

Question 9

Tilly

Answer 9

The war made states and the states made war
- Bellicist argument

Question 10

What is war?
- criteria (4)

Answer 10

• nature and definition change over time (e.g. long or short, inter-state or also civil, tribal)

Criteria to define war:
- sustained, organized, deliberate violence (not just a short/small dispute + has to have a clear motivation/goal/ideology)
- between at least two political organizations (also non-state actors, pseudo-state, terrorism etc.)

other additional requirements (no consensus)
- lethality (no consensus who to include: just soldiers, or also civilians?)
- reciprocity: 2 or more actors capable of harming each other

!these are often arbitrary, keep that in mind

Question 11

COW lethality treshold

Answer 11

argues that there have to be 1000 deaths to be called a war

problem: don’t look at wars before the Napoleonic wars -> no information about wars with smaller amounts of deaths -> less information about civil wars and decolonization wars

includes only soldiers (e.g. problematic with decolonization wars)

*claims to be non-arbitrary, but isn’t

Question 12

PRIO datasets on war

Answer 12

looks at lethality treshold, is more inclusive and broad than COW

Question 13

categorizing wars

Answer 13

most IR scholars have focused on interstate wars, especially wars between great powers
-> overestimating of idea of less violence, more peace

various other examples: civil war, colonial war, tribal war, commercial war, insurgency

*commercial war

interstate vs. civil war (internal, intrastate) wars
- questions over internationalized civil wars
- Proxy wars

Question 14

Why is it important to categorize war?

Answer 14

because there are better theories/approaches to explain different types of wars

it is important to categorize wars to decide which approaches/theories are best applied to explain/study

Question 15

Causes of war: realism and anarchy
3 approaches

Answer 15

classical realism: conflict is inherent due to human nature
- anarchy
- survival leads to competition
- aggressive tendencies
only way to survive in the competitive anarchical system, states need to go to war and to protect themselves

psychology of threat perception (security dilemma)
- limited information about intentions -> always insecure and increasing military -> unintended conflict spiral
*risk of exaggerating adversary’s hostility
(e.g. Russia and NATO + North and South Korea)

power transitions
- rising challengers vs. declining great powers -> higher chance of conflict/war

Question 16

causes of war: liberal and constructivist approaches

Answer 16

Collective enforcement of accepted norms (e.g. R2P, democratization etc.)

Question 17

diversionary theory of war

Answer 17

war to divert attention from domestic economic crises, corruption, scandals

scapegoating & internal cohesion (‘‘rally around the flag’’)

way to reinforce legitimacy that is being deluted because of scandals

*mostly liberals argue that institutions play a role in wars: governments want to survive the elections, may want to divert attention from other aspects

not just a liberal argument: constructivism
- identity and social interaction: scapegoating the enemy creates duality inside and outside

Question 18

Falklands/Malvinas conflict (1982)

Answer 18

Argentina economic downturn at home -> military junta: divert attention of the population by going to war with the UK over a small territory in the Atlantic (Falklands)

• figured the UK wouldn’t fight for it (had own problems at home + far away and small)

Thatcher also used te diversionary theory : fought back

Question 19

The causes of war: marxist-leninist theories of imperialism and war

Answer 19

• capitalists, liberal modes of production lead to economic competition
• pressure by groups/elites for imperialist expansion external markets and raw materials
• scramble for Africa, Spanish-American war, WW1, Iraq wars

Question 20

explanations absence of war

Answer 20

democratic peace theory: liberal/democratic societies do not fight each other
- or to the least attempt to reduce conflict through conflict resolutions, arms and collective disarmament schemes (The Hague conferences e.g.)

capitalist peace theory: trade and interdependence reduce incentives for conflict/war

realism: alliances, external balancing limit conditions for war
- not peace, but absence of conflict/war

Question 21

McDonalds peace theory / golden arches peace theory
+ death

Answer 21

metaphor proxy for the capitalist/liberal/democratic peace theory

countries that both have McDonalds don’t go to war with each other

~20 functional years, ended with Georgia war

Question 22

War by other means: NotPetya

Answer 22

attack that began, at least, as an assault on one state by another

NotPetya: malware used by Russian hackers against Ukraine

Cyberwar
- lots of collateral damage (interconnectedness)
- absence of loss of life, still major impact
- called a new kind of ‘‘massive, coordinated cyber invasion’’

much at stake, often overlooked because it isn’t a classical weapon of warfare

Question 23

How to counter new challenges (cyberwarfare)

Answer 23

• difficult to find/determine source(s)
• lack of proper response (US government) -> invitation to more escalation
• cofounding geography of cyberwarfare: distance is no defense, network of entanglements (vulnerability of this Ukrainian accounting software affects the US national security supply of vaccines and global shipping)

In the absence of political leadership, tech companies carrying their own defense against al threats, including nation-states
- norm entrepreneurs: advocate for a digital Geneva Convention that creates a set of international norms to protect cyberspace
- assign blame in these attacks
- can’t retaliate when they detect a threat
lack authority

Question 24

Changing nature of warfare (theoretically)

Answer 24

Gaddis: post-cold war period = long peace
- less interstate, great power wars
- more civil wars, but these aren’t as lethal as traditional wars

revolution towards more unconventional type of warfare: hybrid warfare
- involvement of non-state actors (PMSCs)
- technological changes
- WMDs, Drone warfare, cyber-wars, social media)
- framing some things as ‘‘non-war’’ and ‘‘war’’ (e.g. dronewar different depth than ‘‘normal war’’

Question 25

PMSC

Answer 25

Private Military, Security company/contractor

Question 26

role of WMDs in war

Answer 26

not all WMDs are atomic weapons

the existence of WMDs makes states less likely to go to war

WMDs are often used (also by non-state actors)

Question 27

future debates

Answer 27

• Fog of war (Clausewitz): complicates the conduct of war also impedes our comprehension of its causes
• multiple paths to war, no consensus
• from total to limited or extra-state wars
• different forms of ‘‘outsourcing’’ (-> logistical, legal and ethical problems unclear)

Question 28

wars back as a normal event?

Answer 28

most countries are at war in some sort, it is just made invisible, there are many shapes

Question 29

change in motivations for war: who or what to protect?

Answer 29

• beyond the national interest
• human security
  e.g. environmental change and conflict

Question 30

war and society

Answer 30

war changes with historical and societal context
society shapes war, and war shapes society

Question 31

strategy v. tactics

Answer 31

strategy = art of arranging battles to serve the purposes of the war
tactics = techniques employed by armed forces to fight other armed forces

Question 32

war at the global scale

Answer 32

interstate war is a form of globalization: leads to global circulation of people, goods and ideas + connects groups + reorganizes political entities

war doesn’t only affect the societies directly engaged in war, also shapes world politics as a whole

Question 33

Clausewitz 2 trinities

Answer 33

war has 3 main tendencies and 3 main groups

Passion - Chance - Reason

People - Armed forces - Leadership

Question 34

Carl von Clausewitz
info
+ main ideas

Answer 34

19th century (Napoleonic wars + French Revolutionary wars)
leading philosopher of war
directed Prussia’s war college

• 2 trinities
• limited v. total war
• real/actual war v. true/absolute war

Question 35

limited war v. total war

Answer 35

limited war = fought for a lesser goal than political existence
total war = political entity or state fights for its existence

*can be a limited for one party, and a total war for another at the same time
e.g. First Indochina war: Vietnamese fought a total war for liberation, French empire fought a limited war

Question 36

real/actual war v. true/absolute war

Answer 36

real/actual war = war that historically happened, is always limited by
- friction: everything that can go wrong will go wrong
- policy: when the purpose of the war has been achieved or is no longer possible, the war ends
- human beings can only do so much violence to each other (developed prior to atomic weapons)

true/absolute war = escalatory nature of war
- war has an inherent tendency to extremes, to ever more violence
- in the absence of policy and friction, war escalates in scale, becomes more violent, goes on longer and extends over more space
- in war each move is checked by a stronger counter move until one of the combatants is exhausted

Question 37

Clausewitz on war and politics

Answer 37

war is a continuation of politics, with the use of other means (force)
- politics can limit and fuel the violence of war
- war connects the politics of combatant societies
- what happens at the war front affects the politics at home (e.g. election outcomes)

Question 38

war, state and society in the West feudalism -> nation-state

Answer 38

feudal system: knightly cavalry + fragmented power
- emergence of infantry armies in the renaissance (ancient greek and roman texts about regular infantry)
- invention of gunpowder and effective canon and muskets

larger armies = more funding necessary = provided by wealth of trading cities
- positive feedback loop: larger territory -> more taxes -> bigger armies + further conquests

sovereign debts -> long-distance travel and slavery

infantry armies became less and less paid troops (mercenary) and more and more male citizens enlisted through mass conscription (idea that male citizens had an obligation to serve the nation in exchange for their increased say in public affairs)

nationalism + nation-state developed as form of political oragnization

Question 39

nuclear weapons and war

Answer 39

• strategic problem = too destructive (risk to destroy what you are fighting over)
• risk of ‘nuclear winter’: collapse of life on the planet
• paradoxical situation: nuclear deterrence, cold war between hostile blocks that had to develop nuclear weapons to keep the other side from using them

concern for nuclear weapons during the cold war -> large military budgets

after the cold war = fear that other groups can get access to nuclear weapons

Question 40

War, state and society in the Global South

Answer 40

mostly wars of empire + internal security
- Europeans used troops to fight rebellion + to fight for imperial expansion
- after decolonization: European security assistance in order to influence the outcomes of war
-