war and world politics Flashcards
Main question:
Why do states go to war?
- foundational question of IR (critical theories criticize that this is the main question)
Relation amount of deaths (relatively) and the international system
The bigger the amount of deaths, the higher the changes/developments in the international system
Most violent war/conflict 2022
Ethiopian civil war
*inter-state wars are seen as more disruptive, but aren’t always/often
War in Ukraine is on track to be among modern history’s bloodiest
looks like it will be a long, violent war
something that we haven’t seen lately
*it has a long build up
decline in casualties example contradiction
proxy war: Iran, Iraq
long time, many casualties
proxy war
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
war is the most destructive form of human behavior
war kills
war destroys
war disrupts
war traumatizes (much longer than the actual war)
in what way does war create rather than disrupt
5
- 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)
Tilly
The war made states and the states made war
- Bellicist argument
What is war?
- criteria (4)
- 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
COW lethality treshold
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
PRIO datasets on war
looks at lethality treshold, is more inclusive and broad than COW
categorizing wars
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
Why is it important to categorize war?
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
Causes of war: realism and anarchy
3 approaches
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
causes of war: liberal and constructivist approaches
Collective enforcement of accepted norms (e.g. R2P, democratization etc.)
diversionary theory of war
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
Falklands/Malvinas conflict (1982)
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
The causes of war: marxist-leninist theories of imperialism and war
- 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
explanations absence of war
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
McDonalds peace theory / golden arches peace theory
+ death
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
War by other means: NotPetya
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
How to counter new challenges (cyberwarfare)
- 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
Changing nature of warfare (theoretically)
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’’
PMSC
Private Military, Security company/contractor
role of WMDs in war
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)
future debates
- 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)
wars back as a normal event?
most countries are at war in some sort, it is just made invisible, there are many shapes
change in motivations for war: who or what to protect?
- beyond the national interest
- human security
e.g. environmental change and conflict
war and society
war changes with historical and societal context
society shapes war, and war shapes society
strategy v. tactics
strategy = art of arranging battles to serve the purposes of the war
tactics = techniques employed by armed forces to fight other armed forces
war at the global scale
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
Clausewitz 2 trinities
war has 3 main tendencies and 3 main groups
Passion - Chance - Reason
People - Armed forces - Leadership
Carl von Clausewitz
info
+ main ideas
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
limited war v. total war
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
real/actual war v. true/absolute war
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
Clausewitz on war and politics
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)
war, state and society in the West feudalism -> nation-state
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
nuclear weapons and war
- 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
War, state and society in the Global South
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
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